


Poisoned Piece

by orphan_account



Category: Alice (2009)
Genre: AU, Adventure, Drama, F/M, Family, Multi, Politics, Romance, Warning: Brainwashing, Warning: Language, Warning: Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-26
Updated: 2010-10-26
Packaged: 2017-10-12 21:44:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Charlie had found his courage sooner, and Hatter's plan to rescue Alice had worked?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blackburne Shilling

It was funny, really. Less than a day ago and the sight of her riding away had nearly torn him in two. Now, it was the best thing he'd ever seen. She was safe; the way Charlie had ridden out of here the two of them wouldn't even slow down until they'd left the city, putting her well out of harm's way. Alice was safe.

He repeated it to himself as he looked up at March's face- or what was passing for it these days. Alice was safe. Everything else he'd find a way to deal with.

* * *

"Charlie, stop," Alice said. But if the knight heard her, he didn't show it, continuing to urge the horse on faster.

"Charlie!" Alice yelled, frustration with her handcuffs mounting. "We need to stop."

"Can't stop, they could be right on our tail," Charlie muttered.

"They aren't on our tail! No one's on our tail. Hatter is-"

He stopped muttering and his arms tightened around her. Alice's heart stuttered.

"No."

"I told him," Charlie said, despondent. "It was suicide. I told him."

* * *

Hatter smirked and rolled his shoulders as one of the Suits undid his handcuffs. Jack, the ponce, caught his eye and gave him a look that inquired as to the health of his sanity. Hatter sent him a wink that promised to pass along his regards when he remembered where it was.

He couldn't lose. He'd won his prize already (Alice was safe), the rest was simply filler space before the finish line. Granted, most of that space was sure to be filled with pain and humiliation, but that was life in Wonderland. You took your victories where you could get them, and he planned on getting as many from the Queen as he could before he went.

* * *

Just Alice was silent as they left the city, still as they entered camp, compliant as he removed her bonds, empty as they ate dinner. Charlie worried, and fretted, and fussed as only a 160-year-old knight could for his liege, and Just Alice sat, oblivious to everything surrounding her as she picked at the cuffs on her sleeves. Charlie could empathize. To lose one's home and one's family and one's friends all in the same terrible blow was no easy thing to survive.

But survive she would. He would make sure of that. He would feed her and shelter her and take care of her and when she began to talk again he would be there to listen, to her wrath or to her commands.

* * *

If there was one thing Hatter knew how to do well, it was put up a good front. Put a little swagger in his hips and an edge on his smile and a flip with his hat and he could convince you the sun was square. Or distract you long enough to punch you so hard you saw stars, one of the two. He was a conman, not a magician. He couldn't get it right all the time, case in point.

"Nope," Hatter said, popping the **p** with great effort and March wrenched his arm further behind him. "I still say you look like beached whale someone's played dress-up with."

Hatter waited for the pop and the pain that would signify that his shoulder had been dislocated, but it didn't come. Instead the Queen smiled. He would have preferred the loss of his arm. It's not like he was exactly using it _now_ , and he didn't need anything else trying to scare his wits away. They were hard enough to gather as it was.

"Is he a friend of yours, March?" She asked, circling around them.

"Once," March replied shortly.

"Hardly," Hatter added. His arm was twisted just a little bit further, and he ground his teeth against the grunt that wanted out.

"Then you should have no problems getting some answers out of him," She proclaimed.

The pop Hatter had been waiting for earlier came then, taking him completely by surprise. He screamed, going wobbly at the knee and breaking out in a cold sweat.

"My pleasure."

* * *

He hadn't meant to sleep, but he had, for when he next looked over at Just Alice light was streaming through the trees and the fire had died down completely.

"Breakfast time!" Charlie said, getting to his feet. "You missed out on it last time, but I make a very good-"

"Charlie," Just Alice said, and he stopped. "I need to go back to the city."

"Just Alice!" Charlie protested. "We're outnumbered! Outgunned! Out maneuvered! You don't have a chance against the Queen."

"I didn't say I was going to the Queen," Alice said, standing. "You're right. I can't go against her now. But if we get into the city, I think I know some people who can help with that. Maybe."

"You do?"

Alice stiffened, then threw her shoulders back. "You don't have to come with me. I just need some food for the trip. I can find my way there myself." She paused, then softened her words with: "You've already done so much for me. You don't need to do more."

"Alice of Legend," Charlie began, straightening himself out. "I have not willingly left your side before, and I do not intend to start now. We shall eat breakfast, gather the necessary provisions, and then we shall ride into the city."


	2. Falkbeer

The first indication that things were going right was the disappearance of the eyes. Fearing the worst- and fearing false hope even more- he fell into a defensive position and squinted against the light that entered the room as the door swung open.

Duchess entered, wearing one of her more demure outfits and carrying a few articles of men's outerwear.

"Quickly, put this on!" She ordered, swinging the coat over his shoulders and depositing the hat on his head.

"What?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"I've bribed the guards, but they'll be back soon," Duchess explained. "Please, we've got to leave now!"

Jack slipped his arms into the sleeves of the jacket, and allowed Duchess to pull him by the arm out of the Eye Room and into the hallway. He waited until they were safely away from any heavily guarded area before he began to resist, using her momentum to tug her back towards him.

"Why are you doing this?" he demanded.

"Isn't it obvious?" she replied. He looked at her in disbelief. No it bloody well was _not_ obvious! "I care about you. I always have."

He didn't dare believe it.

"You work for my mother. You always have," he replied. Duchess looked up at him, eyes glittering with unshed tears.

"Loving you has its price," she whispered.

At that moment, he could not have been more shocked if his father had popped out of the woodwork and declared that he and Mother would be on holiday for the next several years, and Alice was to rule in their absence.

"We need to leave," she said again, and then they were off.

* * *

"I've come to return a library book," Alice called.

"How doth the little crocodile improve his shinning tail?"

"He pours the waters of the Nile on every shinning scale."

Duck did a double take as he let her in, and then a triple one for Charlie, who smiled amiably up at the other man from underneath his helmet.

"Hello!" he greeted him.

Duck didn't answer, instead pulling the lever that would deposit them into the library properly. The sudden drop wasn't nearly as terrifying the second time around. Neither was the sight of Owl and her sawed off shotgun and suspicion.

Not to say that either experience was pleasant, or even neutral, but it was _much_ less terrifying.

"I thought you were joking when you said they'd probably want to shoot us," Charlie said from behind her, disappointed. Owl peered up at him, blinking in a manner that benefited her namesake.

"Is that a Knight?" she asked.

"He is indeed," Alice replied, more grateful than ever that he'd come along with her. She hadn't thought before what a Knight would mean to the Resistance; she'd just wanted not to be alone while she did this. She still didn't, and made a mental note to try and keep Dodo from getting a clear shot at Charlie after they got past these two. And not get shot herself.

Jesus Christ, how had Hatter managed this again? _Tasty delicious bribes_ she reminded herself, reaching carefully into the satchel tucked under her jacket.

"He was also nice enough to pick some cucumbers. Would you like some?"

* * *

The Queen was not in a good mood.

True, she had retaken control of the Looking Glass; Tea production was once again on the rise; her Carpenter was still at work and still dedicated to it. In short, her power was secure.

But not unthreatened.

She'd been so close- so, so _close_ \- to eliminating all of those who would oppose her. Her rebellious son had be caught consorting with the Resistance, Alice had been in her grasp, and Caterpillar was dead. Then Jack had slipped away, assisted by that treacherous Duchess, and Alice had been rescued by a Knight and a _Tea Shop owner_ of all things; the fact that neither of them had be apprehended in the intervening day spoke to the Resistance's continued activity.

Either that, or Alice was far, far nervier than she thought, conspiring with her son to overthrow her from the very beginning.

She wasn't without recourse, however. Carpenter was, sadly, too valuable to try and use against anyone, but the Tea Shop owner, this Hatter; he had promise. And a history with her favorite assassin she'd been unaware of. That spoke of a potential for something ever greater than leverage.

Mad March, ever the showman, timed the application of a hot iron to Hatter's shoulder to coincide with her arrival, so that she was greeted with screams as she walked through the door.

"Why's a raven like a writing desk?" Hatter gibbered, gasping painfully.

"Has he cracked?" The Queen asked.

"The clockwork's not ticking properly," Hatter continued, almost in answer to her question.

"He won't crack," March answered.

"Must be crumbs in the butter."

The Queen moved until she was standing directly in front of the prisoner, crouching slightly so that they were at eye level. "Am I right in thinking that you and he worked together once?"

"Your hair wants cutting," Hatter spat out. She didn't wait for March to answer her.

"Would you like to do so again?"

Mad March cocked his head, interested. "What's the catch?"

"You'd be responsible for him." At first, at least. If Mad March became even more difficult to control, Hatter could be his replacement. "It would also take time. The Tweedles would need to make the necessary adjustments."

"It'll take a long time, then," March said, casually laying the hot iron against Hatter's arm. He tried and failed to hold back another scream; her nose wrinkled against the renewed smell of burning flesh. "He's very stubborn. If you can manage it, he'll be worth the effort though."

"Alice is safe," Hatter gasped. "It's worth it. Alice is safe."

* * *

Dodo was unsurprisingly unimpressed with her arrival. Alice was surprised by the presence of Caterpillar. Charlie seemed to shock everyone by existing, and was in turn impressed with their hideout.

"Remarkable!" he enthused, taking a closer look at the bookcase. "We had libraries in the City of the Knights, but I had to board them up. The animals were getting into them, and nothing spoils a good read like finding out the middle of the book is currently be utilized as a squirrel's nest."

"Didn't you go up in a puff of smoke?" Alice asked Caterpillar, careful to keep herself between the Knight and Dodo, for all the younger man appeared more likely to put his head through his desk than pull out a gun.

"Were you not captured by Suits?" Caterpillar retorted. Alice raised an eyebrow.

"I rescued her!" Charlie chimed in.

"She bought cucumbers!" Owl exclaimed.

"She also lost the ring," Dodo said, giving her a withering look.

"That was, admittedly, not her fault," Caterpillar said. "I had asked for the ring to be bought to the city."

"Why her? Why not just the ring?" Dodo cried, exasperated. "She's only an Oyster, she can't-"

"Carpenter's her father," Caterpillar said.

Dodo gaped. "She's an Oyster!"

"My name is Alice!" she protested. She was getting really, _really_ tired of being referred to as 'the Oyster'.

"So was Carpenter, originally. I'd hoped he could be reminded of that."

"I'm a Knight," Charlie said, obviously having trouble following the conversation.

"So they're both Oysters! How does that help us?"

"We could through them back," Owl suggested around a mouthful of cucumber. "That would be rid of Carpenter and his Tea."

"We need Carpenter," Caterpillar replied. "Unlike the Walrus, he might be inclined to help with the Tea-heads once the Queen is overthrown. Alice is the key to reminding him who he is: someone who will want to undo the damage he's caused."

"He doesn't know what he's doing," Alice shot back. "He's been brainwashed, for crying out loud. He didn't even remember me, or Mom, or his friends..."

There was, at long last, silence in the library.

"You were getting through to him," Caterpillar said firmly. "With a little more time, you will."

"So you plan on trying to get him out again," Alice said.

"If at all possible," Caterpillar said. "We were hasty getting him out that time: it seemed prudent, what with the Queen out for blood, to reunite the two of you as soon as possible. Now we shall have to try slower methods. We may even need to smuggle you inside."

"Now hold on a minute-" Dodo began.

"There's also Hatter," Alice interrupted.

"What about Hatter?" Duck asked.

"Alas, he was captured during our rescue of Alice," Charlie informed them mournfully. "No doubt the Queen has taken him to the casino-"

Dodo let out a loud groan. "We'll have to evacuate."

"What?" Alice asked.

"Evacuate. Leave. Sacrifice 150 years worth of hording books and hiding people, because Hatter will talk."

"No he won't," Alice denied. It was a knee jerk reaction.

"Yes he will," Dodo scoffed. "They won't even have to do anything to him, he'll give us all up to save his own skin!"

"How can you say that?" Alice cried. "Do you have any idea what he's _done_ the past three days? He's lost his home, been chased by a Jabberwock, and rescued me twice, getting roughed up all the time and never losing site of the fact that the Queen needed to be overthrown and I was holding the means to do it! All this _after_ you shot him and put a price on his head! He isn't going to talk. Unless we get him out of there soon they're going to torture then kill him!"

The part about his never losing sight of the Resistance's objectives wasn't true, strictly speaking. He had, after all, for a very brief period of time, entertained the idea of moving to her world and leaving the chaos of Wonderland behind. There had also been the heat in his eyes when he looked at her that made her want to believe that he hadn't been doing this entirely for Wonderland. That didn't change the fact that whenever it counted, he'd pulled through for all of them.

"You're the one who put a price on Hatter's head?" Caterpillar asked, frowning.

As he and Dodo began to talk around the room's other occupants again, Alice exchanged impatient looks with Charlie. This was going to take a while.

She only hoped they had enough time for it.

* * *

It was only a small thought, but it was odd enough that he had to repeat it to himself several times over, turn it about to find where it came from.

 _It's the same color as the shutters back home._

"Bad batch?" Walrus asked

"There's something off, but I can't pin it down," Carpenter replied, sniffing at the batch of Nostalgia.

 _The same color..._

"Here," he said, passing the vial over. "What do you think?"

It was ridiculous. He was Carpenter; he was a Wonderlander; and he'd never _had_ blue shutters. It was that girl, that was all. The same traitors that had kidnapped him had likely slipped him something that left him open to suggestion. He would just have to work through it.

He ignored that fact that Alice had never mentioned the shutters.


	3. Zwischenzug

Hatter was the sort of person who lived by appearing as he was not, projecting and exaggerating only whatever parts of himself he wanted to show. He could take the truth and twist it so far around that it sounded like a lie, and the things he could do with a lie weren't talked about in polite company.

Dr. Dee and Dr. Dum were not polite company. So when the room swirled on and they began to poke and prod around his brain he showed him all the smoke and mirrors, the masks and the web of lies he could throw over anyone at any given moment. He hid in the shadows of his mind as the pair observed the trappings.

"At last," one said.

"A challenge," agreed the other.

* * *

Dodo and Caterpillar talked, and talked, and talked some more, cover enough unknown subjects that Alice was merely listening now.. In fact, it had taken long enough to get to that point that Charlie began to nod off, Duck left all together, and Owl ducked out only to return with some clothes for her: trousers and tunics, mostly.

"They were my daughter's," she said, patting Alice absently on the shoulder. "She was about your age. I've kept them in good repair. You're going to need more than that dress if you're going to be running around outside."

There was nothing Alice could say to that but "Thank you." And then ask where she could safely change.

As the conversation meandered through the night, Alice adjusted Charlie so that he wouldn't wake with even greater back problems, and wished that Hatter was here. She wished for her father as well, out of habit as much as the fact that she knew they were close to being reunited. She wished Jack was here, for the knowledge that he was safe as much as the desire to smack him for getting her into this mess. And to top it all off she wished for her mother too.

"Perhaps this conversation could be continued after a night's rest?" Charlie suggested suddenly, scaring the crap out of her. Dodo and Caterpillar jumped too.

"There's room for the three of you in the maritime section," Dodo said, rubbing at his eyes and reaching for some more papers. "Ask Owl to show you the way."

* * *

Duchess had the plan for their escape laid out well in advance. There was a safe house in the city they could lay low in, at least until the search parties became less ardent, stocked with food and clothing for them both. What she was lacking was a good excuse to avoid talking with Jack. He stood leaning with his back against the door, not asking for anything verbally, but demanding it all the same. It was in the way he'd managed to recover his poise since leaving the Eye Room, in how he was block off the exit, in how his eyes followed her around everywhere. It was in the way he looked at her though he wasn't sure whether or not he should be afraid.

She felt naked. Not nude- she could handle being nude perfectly well, thank you- but naked: completely exposed and defenseless.

"You had this planned."

It sounded like a compliment, but Duchess could, as always, hear the questions he wanted to ask behind it: _for me? For us? For what?_

"Once it became obvious that you were going against your mother it seemed prudent to," Duchess hadn't meant to end her sentence there, but she had to swallow, and when she was finished the words still wouldn't come.

She had imagined this scenario before. On the run from the Queen, but free from the Court, he would be so _pleased_ that she had thought ahead and she'd be able to pledge her reciprocated, undying love for him and together they could remake Wonderland. There had been none of his suspicion in the fantasy. There had been no Resistance ties just recently cut, and _especially_ no Alice.

"We can stay here for a few days," she continued finally, avoiding his eyes as much as she could. "The search parties will likely pass us by."

"And then what?" Jack asked.

"We figure out what to do about your mother." Her reply was less certain than she'd like it to be. Everything was.

* * *

Carpenter was thinking: he wouldn't call it remembering.

The house had been yellow; the shutters were blue, the roof was black, and there was a cherry tree in the front that was sometimes pink, sometimes green, and sometimes nothing at all. His apartment was a sterile white and red combination, same as any who worked in the Queen's employ.

The house felt more like home, in his memories, than anything he could feel about the apartment.

The wife's name was Carol. Carol Lewis when they met, Carol Hamilton when they married. A no-nonsense woman, a psychiatrist, able to just barely follow along with the Robert's neurobiology hypothesis the same way the Robert could just barely follow along with the cases of her anonymous patients. He didn't have a wife. He had the Walrus, who was hardly his partner in anything other than work, so it wasn't really a fair comparison. Of course he felt more for the wife than his Walrus.

And the girl... the girl was missing. But he could talk to someone who'd known her.

* * *

It felt to Alice like she had barely curled up on a bed made of sea shanties when Charlie was shaking her gently by the shoulder. Dodo and Caterpillar were continuing their conversation, without a thought as to whether she was there or not. It soon became clear to Alice that whether or not she would be allowed into the Resistance was going to be a source of great contention between the two men, which in turn was something of a source of contention between herself and pretty much everybody. She was beginning to think that Hatter's instance that she save herself and leave Wonderland without rescuing Jack or her father first was actually the Wonderland version of chivalry. Everyone's else version of 'you need to fend for yourself' ended up being more and more focused on 'because we aren't going to help you' rather than 'there's nothing else to do'.

It was depressing, the thought that if Caterpillar won this argument it would only be because they thought her father was still useful to them. What was more depressing was the thought of what Dodo winning would mean.

Charlie, however, pulled through for her again.

She hadn't eaten anything remotely approaching either breakfast that morning or dinner the night before, and there was only so much her body could ignore in favor of focusing on making herself appear useful. When her stomach growled right in the middle of pointing out that she wasn't exactly a useless fighter and the bruises she could see on Dodo's face proved it, Charlie passed over a cucumber sandwich.

"Thank you," she said, more grateful then she ever had been for a cucumber sandwich before. She'd nearly eaten it all before she realized that Dodo and Caterpillar had broken off were both staring at it.

She swallowed. "Charlie, do you have any more sandwiches?"

"Yes," he replied, uncertainly. "Would you like some more?"

"No, but I think our Resistance friends would," Alice said, turning from the knight to face the two men in question.

She knew the Resistance was a bit short on food: Hatter wouldn't have been able to bribe his way into the Library with two wheels of cheese otherwise. She'd been counting on it to get inside; she didn't know how else she was going to get this far, not without hurting anyone. And with Hatter now captured ( _don't think about it, Alice_ she ordered herself) the Resistance would likely be in even more dire straits. Hatter had said that they depended on him, that he was feeding them.

And Charlie was good at surviving, and producing. He'd shown them his inventions for tilling more soil than any one man's food consumption could require. Provided that Charlie was on board-

She looked back at the knight, who'd drawn himself straight and proud as he placed two more sandwiches on Dodo's desk. He winked at her as he sat back down. She smiled. Yeah, Charlie was on board.

* * *

When Hatter came back into himself, he first noticed that he was in a lot of pain. His bones ached and his head pounded and his gut twisted and his lungs burned and his throat was lined with razors and…

Perhaps it would be easier to list what didn't hurt. After a long time's thought, he realized that this list had a single entry: his hair.

He lay curled on the floor of his cell, dry heaving, as awareness trickled back in. His name was David Theophilus Hatter. He was 43 years old. His parents were Madeline and Janus from the Grand Chess Alliance. They'd died when he was young, and he'd look after himself with sneaking and thieving until he got his own business. He smuggled, and he sold Tea. He lived above his Tea Shop. He worked below his bedroom. It was all worth it; Alice was safe.

Alice- Alice was his… Alice wasn't _his_ … Alice was worth it. It being, he supposed, the agony he was currently in.

Why was that-

The rest of his life seemed to take him all in a rush. He had a best mate, Dormie. He used to have a best mate, Mad March, who he sort of hated now. No, he didn't _hate_ him, he just wanted him to go back to being dead. He hated the Tea, but he loved selling it, because he was really, really good at it. He liked to read…

There was something missing. Something that connected reading to Alice who he didn't like and wasn't entirely sure he loved either. His experience with love was that it was a strong, warm, glowing, prideful, slightly guilty emotion that kept you tied to a thing even when you'd be better off leaving it alone. He supposed that applied to Alice: just take out the prideful part and add in a heap of terrifying. Alice was- Alice was safe. Not for him, but from him, and everyone else.

There was still something missing, though. Something in between that very wet dress and running from Mad March. Something to do with books and birds…

How had he gotten into smuggling again?

* * *

Duchess's outfits were every bit as showy in hiding as they had been the past several years. Jack was unsure what to make of it, watching the hem of her dark green skirt fall several inches above what would conventionally be considered a decent length as she adjusted it. Her hands moved restlessly as she adjusted her top as well: technically a turtleneck, except for the part where the only opaque part of it was the circles covering her breasts.

He continued to watch. Duchess continued to fiddle. The clock ticked loudly on the wall.

It had more or less been like this for two days now: as the sun set, it would be two-and-a-half. They'd tried to talk about their plans, but it was a conversation greatly hindered by the fact that Jack had no idea how far he could trust Duchess. This made it impossible for him to reveal any of the hideout his Resistance ties afforded him. It also made it hard for him to take her suggestions seriously, not when they all had the disadvantage of him being dependent on her for food and supplies and to remain hidden. And so they sat, frozen in indecision until one of them lost their patience. They had both grown up in Court- it could be a very long while before that happened.

Duchess opened her mouth, and he straightened. She startled, then coughed.

The clocked ticked louder.

No, not louder. Quicker.

"Is it supposed to be doing that?" Jack asked.

The clock began to screech. Duchess ignored it, hurrying over to the window instead, gasping at what she saw between the blinds. Jack stood behind her and peaked over her shoulder.

Suits: they swarmed outside on the pavement like ants over a picnic, dispersing into every building in groups of ten and twelve. Jack swore, and ran for the bedroom.

"Jack!" Duchess called. "What are you doing? We need to leave, now!"

Jack reached beneath his pillow, and pulled out the gun Duchess had been wearing when they escaped. She hadn't noticed him take it from her things yesterday, something which he was very glad of now.

"Jack!" she hissed, rounding the door. She stopped short at the sight on him. Jack straightened himself, and checked the bullets.

"Jack?" Duchess asked.

"You're right," Jack said, as calmly as he could. "It's time to go."

She started towards him and he aimed the gun at her. She froze, and she melted: tears leaked out of her eyes and her shoulders shook as she became rooted to the spot. "Jack…"

"I can't trust you," he said, moving off to the side. She turned with him, not breaking eye contact. "I can't live like this, always wondering what sort of game you're playing, what it is you want from me. First you pretended to be my friend-"

"I didn't pretend," Duchess whispered. "Jack, I-"

"What is it you want? What is it you're looking to gain from this?" he cried. The gun wavered in his hands, involuntarily. "Tell me the truth!"

Somewhere, this had become not about the danger approaching them, but about the two of them. The conversation they'd spent the longest amount of time avoiding was upon them at last. Unfortunately, no one had informed the Suits of that.

The first one snuck up behind Duchess and grabbed her around the waist.

"Drop-" The Suit started, but never finished her sentence. Jack shot her between the eyes: Duchess stumbled out of her now-limb grasp then pivoted around the snatch at the Spade's gun, still in its holster. She fired off another shot. There was a grunt from the main room, and then they were left with the smell of iron and gunpowder, and the screeching of the clock: _it's time to get out_.

"They'll have heard that," Jack remarked, not thinking about how he had shot a person rather than a clay pigeon, not thinking that he had done it to protect someone he'd never truly known.

"We could probably steal a boat from the docks," Duchess said. "As long as we could make it that far."

"Let's use the service elevator," Jack replied.

They stepped over the corpses and around the blood, leaving the door open behind them. The walk down the hall was a quick clatter of heel on tile, and then the elevator doors dinging quietly against the thunder of footsteps drawing ever nearer up the stairs.

"I love you," Duchess said, quite suddenly. "I want you to believe that."

It took Jack the rest of the elevator ride to figure out that she was answering his question.

* * *

They dosed the boy with Apathy when they sent him up. No one said anything, but you couldn't fool the Carpenter. He was dressed in the red scrubs he'd come to associate with long-term patients of the Tweedles, and the disaffected, glassy-eyed way with which he was studying some of the stains on his set were a sure sign of Apathy use.

Carpenter sat down opposite from him. He didn't look up, but remarked "I think my sleeve might be burnt into my arm."

Carpenter checked, and sure enough the sleeve of his right arm was riddled with burns that went straight to his skin, meshing the fibers to it.

"That's going to be very painful coming off," the boy remarked. No, not the boy: Carpenter checked his notes. Hatter, David T was still focused on his sleeve.

"Mr. Hatter," Carpenter said. Hatter didn't look up, but murmured "Go on, I'm listening."

"I'm here about Alice."

The effect was immediate: Hatter straightened considerably and looked him dead in the eye. "What about Alice? Have you heard anything? She isn't here, is she?"

That was the problem with Apathy, they'd found several years back. It wasn't an emotion so much as an absence of emotion, and as the chemicals from the subject's own emotions began to build up the Apathy wore off rapidly. The end result was something completely unmarketable, with a mild use as a tranquilizer.

"No she's still missing," Carpenter replied soothingly, trying to move Hatter's emotional state back towards neutral. It worked a little too well, and his attention became refocused on his sleeve.

"I'm curious about her, though," Carpenter continued, trying to get his attention back. "She's certainly seems to cause a lot of trouble."

Hatter wheezed. It sounded like it wanted to be a laugh, and was trying not to be a cough. "The clockwork's not ticking properly."

Carpenter's gaze fell to the watch on his wrist, unnecessary and non-functioning and yet…

"Well, that too," Hatter said, following his gaze. "I was actually talking about the fact that you want to start asking me questions again after you've started taking bits and pieces out."

"What?"

"I had most of myself was when I was caught, but there are holes now. The doctors are cutting the bits of me out the Queen doesn't like, I think," Hatter explained, tone flat, like a student giving a presentation on the limbic system.

Carpenter shook his head to relieve it of its cobwebs. "Is Alice a part of these holes?"

"Alice is safe," Hatter said, the words slipping out almost unconsciously.

"Yes, but-"

There was a rap at the door, and Walrus pressed his ruddy face against the glass. His time was up.

"Alice is safe," Hatter repeated.

"Yes, I suppose she is," Carpenter said.

* * *

In the end, it was decided that Charlie and Alice would have to split up for the time being. Charlie quite rightly insisted that he be in the City of the Knights while it was hosting Resistance members, and Alice would need to be ready to make the journey to the Casino at a moment's notice, meaning that she would remain in the Library.

Dodo was beyond thrilled. Charlie and Alice even more so.

But that was all there was to do at this point. Charlie would lead a small group of Resistance members who had experience with farming out of the city, and Alice would wait for her chance to topple the house of cards. Until then, the only thing to do was to live day to day as best they could.


	4. Connected Pawns

They were killing the street kid today.

It had been Mad March who'd forced that identity to become a more latent one, and so it was only fitting that he be present when it was buried forever. He helped them warm Hatter up, pushing him past his pain threshold and making him more susceptible to their tricks. The doctors themselves set up their elaborate trap, the landscape of the city streets he'd lived on as a teen. They made the predators more threatening, the hidey-holes harder to get to and less pleasant to be in, the food laced with drugs and disease to slow down the prey. Whereas in reality Hatter had managed to avoid most of the pitfalls that came with cohabiting with Lust-steeped Teaheads, muggers, and gangs of older kids, they set it up so that he would have no escape, no chance meeting with the Queen's favorite assassin, no impression to leave upon someone capable of helping him under a roof.

After his physical body was taxed enough to lower his mental defenses, they pulled Mad March into Hatter's head and began to work on the facet. They coaxed it out of the glassy encampment with the same promise that had tempted the 'real' Hatter into March's care: the promise of easy money and a steady supply of food and shelter. From there all that was needed was to watch him run himself down, watch the self-confidence he'd fallen back on fail to develop, watch the knowledge that he could avoid the worst of anything fade until it was nothing more than a flight of fancy. There are a lot of nasty things that can happen to a young boy on his own, and without the favor of Luck and with the attentions of the Tweedles, every one of them was given a go at the facet.

It ended like all torture sessions do: when the subject finally gives in. Hatter's teenage self pitched himself and all the associated memories and feelings and traits off a bridge. An end to the simulation showed that Hatter's face was heavily bruised, and that he was bleeding sluggishly from his ears and nose; when he woke up, he would have no memory of those years, and they would provide no holds for him.

A most satisfying session: they would work on killing the Tea Shop owner next.

* * *

There was no way to make it to the closest dock, and so they went downwards, walking beneath aqueducts and making good use of the ramps whenever the option was available to them. The sounds of the Suits searching for them faded into the sounds of running water and the occasional footstep of one of the city's regular citizens, hurrying to get to wherever they were going without getting waylaid. It was a nice walk, in Jack's opinion, for all that it was mostly in the dark and done under less than ideal circumstances. Eventually, Jack realized that Duchess had lost the way and was desperately trying not to show it, and began to steer them towards the lake where there were bound to be plenty of boats to steal and plenty of places to run to. They could take it down the aqueducts and hide out in the Underlands, or take it east a ways and hide out in his old family estate. They could even-

They could even take it across the lake, to the City of the Knights, where Alice may possibly be. He wasn't quite sure how helpful that would ultimately prove, but he would feel much better with the knowledge that she was safe and still on his side.

There was a dock up ahead, a line of unattended boats bobbing gently where they were tied to it. Just three stories more downwards and they were free.

Naturally, no sooner had they reached a boat and begun to untie it when someone grabbed him by the wrist and flung him into the water. Duchess cried out in alarm, and then the lake closed over him. He surfaced quickly, spluttering.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Alice yelled from above him, though not at him. She held a torch in her left hand, and was shinning it at Duchess, who squinted against the onslaught. Jack spat out more tepid water, and began treading.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Duchess hissed.

Alice set down the torch, eyes never leaving her face. "I'm not going to tell you!"

"And I'm not telling you!"

"While neither of you are speaking to each other," Jack interrupted as politely as possible. "Could I get a little help?"

As one, Duchess and Alice walked to the edge of the dock and helped him back onto relatively solid and dry land. Jack took off his jacket, and wrung it out in a futile effort to preserve it.

"Thank you," Jack said.

"You're welcome," Alice replied, soundly slightly unsure of that statement. Jack felt something cold settle into his chest that had nothing to do with the water.

"Duchess does have a point. Not that I'm not overjoyed to see you well." The words sounded off even to his ears. He winced, then pressed quickly forwards. "But what _are_ you doing here?"

Alice tilted her chin up a little. "Besides enjoying the karmic slapstick show?"

Jack took a look an involuntary look at his sodden self, then looked back her. "Yes."

"I'm… running errands."

Jack frowned. Over Alice's shoulder, he saw Duchess do the same.

"For who?"

Alice seemed to ponder it, then crossed her arms and looked up at him. "Would you like to meet them?"

* * *

Alice was his daughter; his and Carol's, through and through. She was intelligent and assertive. She was a cat person. She always wanted to be spun faster on the tilt-a-whirl. She was the top of her graduating class in elementary school. She wanted to be a policewoman when she grew up.

She _was_ a grown-up now. Maybe she was a policewoman too. He didn't know. He'd missed it- he'd missed her teenage years, her first boyfriend, her first break-up, her high school graduate, her college years…

"Jesus Christ," Robert swore. Walrus looked at him oddly.

"It's gone off," he explained quickly, "And given me the great-grandmother of all headaches in the process."

Walrus grimaced in sympathy, and promptly washed the vial of Nostalgia down the drain. It was easy to feign the symptoms of a bad batch, not bad enough to stop him from working, but enough to give him a rough time of sleeping and excuse his being late to work tomorrow. By the time 'late' became 'absent' and anyone thought to look for him, he'd be long gone.

But first, he had to finish the day. And then he had a prisoner to visit.

* * *

Charlie made it back to camp in short order after seeing off Lady Alice and the cabbages. He still didn't think much of being separated, and even less of being so far away from the dangers that would surely be plaguing her, but supplies were important. It was among the first things they taught you as a page: keep your weapons in good repair, wear your comfortable boots to battle, and _watch your supplies_.

Supplies had also factored into sieges, if he recalled correctly (which he did- he was a Knight, after all). The safest way to win a siege was to cut off a fortress' supply lines and wait until they found surrender preferable to starvation. While the library was not an impenetrable fortress such as he had grown up learning the ins and outs of, there was no doubt that Lady Alice's allies were under siege, and thus, his supplies were of vital importance.

Not that it change the fact that he would much rather be with Lady Alice than stuck here, trying to teach Duck how to harvest a crop without killing everything in the process.

* * *

Hatter was the sort of person who survived by appearing as more than he was. He could fool everyone and anyone into thinking that he was suave, or ruthless, or cunning when he was mostly just scared. He could, that is, until now.

All his lies were gone now. The mirrors lay in shatters on the floor, the web straightened out and spooled closed, the smoke long dispersed and the masks burnt. All there was left could hide beneath his hat- was hiding beneath his hat, as a matter of fact, waiting for one Tweedle or another to find him.

Still, his life hadn't been an entirely worthless thing. After all, he reminded himself as the hat was lifted away, leaving him completely exposed, Alice was safe. And that was worth everything.

* * *

Walking through the city at night when two of your three-person party is wearing blindfolds was no easy feat, but somehow they managed. The blindfolds were removed by a shotgun-toting , elderly woman as they stood on a balcony overseeing what could only be described as a city of books. They were everywhere, used as tables and chairs and beds for the people living among them. He wouldn't have been at all surprised to hear that they were used as clothing either.

"The Great Library," Duchess breathed from beside him, leaning forwards slightly as though to drink in the sight. He remembered, with a pang, how excited she had been when he'd shown her one of the books Caterpillar had had smuggled to him. He'd assumed in recent times that the reaction had been faked, that everything that she showed him had been faked, but now he wasn't sure.

"I'm sure Caterpillar will vouch for you," Alice said. Jack started, and turned to face her wear she stood with her back against the pillar. He would very much have liked to say that she looked strange, standing there dressed in Wonderland clothes a good thirty years out of fashion and leveling a closed-off, considering look, but in truth she didn't.

"Does that mean you won't vouch for me?" Jack asked.

Alice crossed her arms over her chest. "It's not that I doubt you have the best of intentions…"

When it became clear that she wasn't going to complete that sentence, he did it for her. "But no, you won't vouch for me."

"No."

The surge of anger was irrational, but knowing something was irrational didn't diminish its effects. "But why?"

"Because you lied to me!"

"I had to!"

"No you didn't!" Alice's arms were no longer folded close but jutting out towards him, her body angling sideways in the defensive posture it took weeks of courtship to wean her off of. "All you needed to say was that you'd found my father and I would have come running. Just four words: _I found your father_. There wasn't any need to tell me your name was Jack Chase, or that you were an accountant for Britain, or to enroll in my class or to ask me out on dates-"

"No, I didn't! I did those things because I _wanted_ to, because- because I care about you," Jack protested.

"How do I believe that?" Alice yelled.

"Because it's the truth!"

Alice's hands shot into the air in a frustrated gesture as Jack was suddenly hit with a wave of déjà vu. There was a quiet cough from beside them: there Caterpillar stood, unflappable as always. It was, perhaps, a mark of how bad a day he was having that it took until that moment to remember that by all rights the man should be dead.

"Well, this will change the game a bit," he said. "How are you doing, Jack?"

"Better than I'd expected to be doing," Jack replied honestly.

"And Duchess?"

Jack looked to her automatically as she spoke: "Likewise, I'm sure."

Caterpillar ignored her response. "I must admit, I'm surprised to see her here among us."

Duchess seemed to find her fingernails incredibly interesting. He suspected this was so she didn't have to look at the giant sign spelling out 'hypocrite' that had evidently been hanging over his head for some time.

"I was as well." Jack took a deep breath and steadied himself for a tremendous leap of faith. "But we can trust her. She has an unparalleled talent for keeping secrets."

* * *

The prison chambers stank. There was no way around it, and he supposed that Dr. Dee and Dr. Dum preferred it that way. The long-term health of their subjects hadn't ever been a priority, which had been an issue they'd clashed over in the past. His job as Carpenter was to get as much emotion from the Oysters as possible, and he couldn't do that if they were sick or dying. He supposed, though, that once the Tweedles were done with your mind there wasn't much use for the body.

Or the body was set to work under a completely different identity and had no idea what was done to it. He wondered for a moment what had been done to him. After about three seconds he decided he was better off not knowing.

There were other people who lived here too, although lived was perhaps too generous a term. Those who were unlucky enough to have the sentence of beheading passed upon and not have the King intervene in a timely manner waited for the executioner's ax here. It was towards one of those cells that he made his way, reminding himself all the while that a mass prison break would likely be noticed, and that he was aiming for discreet.

He finally found the right cell, the numbers having long since been buried beneath layers of grime, and entered the general Eggman code all his workers had. The door opened, as most would, and the former Nine of Clubs cautiously picked himself off the floor. He had been the driver who had gotten Duchess and Jack to safety, and once the information of where and how had been rung from him he'd been sentenced to death.

"Listen very carefully," Robert said. "I can get you out of here, alive, but I'm going to need something in return."

* * *

The man Caterpillar had introduced as Dodo stared at Jack. "Goddesses above, man, why don't you just bring the bloody Queen of Hearts here and be done with it!"

He was shouting at Caterpillar, but it was Jack who answered. "Because if my mother were here, we could just shoot her, and that would be far too easy."

"Well, I'm happy to see sociopathy runs in family!" Dodo exclaimed.

"As I was saying," Caterpillar interrupted mildly. "The woman in green is Duchess."

"Of course she is!" Dodo threw his hands in to the air.

"Now that we've got that settled," Alice said, voice heavy with sarcasm. "Can we figure out how their being here changes things?" She waited a beat, then added. "Or if it's painfully obvious, could someone please tell me, instead of playing ten rounds of 'confuse the Oyster girl'?"

"As Jack and Duchess have been heirs to the throne for some time now, their open support should galvanize our more conservative sympathizers."

"And annoy our progressive members," Dodo grumbled. "Presuming, of course, we all live long enough to tell anyone, now that this has become the hub of activity for Wonderland's most wanted."

"It would be a clever trick, to hit a target you can't see," Caterpillar mused.

Dodo twitched, and picked up a book, looking for a moment like he was going to hit someone with it. Once more, Alice intervened. "Will that help our plan to get me to my father? Is it going to rescue Hatter? What are the results likely to be?"

"Besides our imminent death by way of sheer stupidity?" Dodo asked.

"Yes," Alice said, tugging the book out of his hands and placing it back on the desk. He snatched it back up almost immediately.

"As you might imagine, many members of the Court fall under the heading of 'conservative sympathizer'. It may be possible, once news of their affiliation filters back to the Casino-"

It was at that point that Duchess made a decision. She was tired of being talked over and around and to instead of with, and it was going to end now. "There's no need to wait. I have contacts in the Court that can smuggle Alice in, as well as start a whisper campaign."

"You do?" Jack asked.

"They _did_ smuggle us out," Duchess pointed out.

"That's the best news I've heard all week!" Alice said, sinking into a chair.

"If you're leaving, it's the best news I've heard too!" Dodo added.

"For someone claiming to want my mother ousted, you aren't being very helpful," Jack observed drolly. Dodo spluttered.

Caterpillar sat as well, looking as unflustered as he had when serving as the King's advisor, and as calculating as he had the day the Queen sentenced him to death. "Tell me about your contacts. We'll formulate a plan from there."

* * *

Hatter awoke to find a large ceramic rabbit head hovering inches above his own. Instinctively he yelled, pushing himself away and raising his fist. Then he yelled again, this time from the pain the movement caused. He collapsed back onto the bed, but forced his arm to stay in front of him defensively.

"Hey hey hey!" The rabbit shouted. "Watch the mug!"

Hatter blinked. He knew that voice.

"March?" he croaked.

"Were you expecting the White Queen?" March replied, head tilting at a condescending angle.

"What the fuck?"

"What do you think happened?"

Hatter thought about it for a moment. "Well, I was obviously set on fire and thrown through a window into an aqueduct ten stories down, and it took you awhile to fish me out because you were just having too much fun in your pottery class. That still doesn't count as a proper hat, but I'll give you credit for the effort."

"Huh," March said after a beat. "Well, the docs did say that the head injuries might have done something to that memory of yours."

"Head injury?" Hatter inquired, frowning.

"Name a body part. You've been injured there," March told him. "What the last thing you remember?"

Hatter thought furiously. "I think- the Thyme job?"

"Seriously? The Thyme job?" March threw back his head and laughed, which was a very tinny sound when it came out of a voice box embedded in his neck. "That was fifteen years ago!"

"Fifteen years! I'm missing fifteen years?" Hatter cried. March laughed harder.

"No wait it's more than that…" He thought furiously, looking for facts. He was David Theophilus Hatter, age probably around forty-two, and he had a best mate called Mad March. He worked as a spook, finding evidence of Resistance work, and once that was found he gave to go ahead to March to take them out- unless the people he was spying on had… something he wanted. But beyond that...

"My childhood's gone!" he said, as March slowly sobered. "I don't even know who my parents are!"

"They're either dead or abandoned you, so I wouldn't worry too much about it," March told him as the door to what Hatter belatedly realized was some sort of infirmary swung open, to reveal an extremely nervous nurse.

"I- I- M-m-m-mister-" She stammered.

"Relax doll," March said, with a familiar enough tone that Hatter could mouth his next words along with him. "I only bite when asked."

She did relax, though not as much as she would have if March wasn't currently part lupine. "The Queen would like to summon you to the throne room to discuss a possible job."

"I'm sure she would," March snapped. The nurse cowered. "But I'm a bit busy with my pal Hatter here."

Hatter, for himself, had come to the sudden realization of why March's head was now made of clay. "Oh go on."

"You sure?" March said, suspicious.

"Well, I shudder to think what you've down to our accounts while I've been laid up, but we must need money," Hatter pointed out. "Besides, you don't even want to know what sort of jokes I have planned if she decides you'd look better as a flamingo next."

March laughed again.

"Pink is not your color!" Hatter insisted. March stood, and the nurse relaxed ever so slightly.

"Okay, okay, I get the picture. You don't charm the nurses too much, I don't want any of them trying to follow you home," he groused. "With a little luck, I'll be back before they're ready to even consider the idea, though."

Hatter laughed, which turned quickly into a cough. By the time the fit was over, March had left.

* * *

The Nine refused to give him his name, and for his part, Robert allowed himself to be called Carpenter. They didn't dare try and steal a bullet car, and with Nine injured as he was it was slow going. They walked through sunset, through the night, and the sun had risen above the horizon again before they arrived at the right place. Nine knocked on the door.

"Who are you, aged man? And how is it you live?" Came a muffled voice from inside. Carpenter found the question odd (as the voice was elderly and female) until the even odder reply came.

"I look for butterflies that sleep among the wheat. I make them into mutton pies and sell them in the street," Nine grit out. The door flew open, and sure enough, an elderly, female person came barreling out, throwing her arms around the Club.

"We heard you'd been captured! We thought you'd been executed!" she cried. There was the sound of a gun being cocked, and Robert felt something heavy being pushed into his back. He raised his hands up.

"Who are you?" said a gruff voice from behind him. It was elderly and male- probably the woman's husband.

"He's Carpenter," Nine said. "He got me out, and he says he wants to defect."

"Oh?"

"I've found- they never- it's a long story, but the short version is that I'm hoping I can find and apologize to my daughter, Alice," Robert said.

"Alice, eh?" said the man. The pressure on Robert's back disappeared, and he stepped out of the shadows into the sunlight.

"Yes. Have you heard anything?" he asked.

"Maybe," the man's hand came down on his shoulder, just a bit too tightly to be entirely friends. "Name's Eaglet, and this is Lory. Why don't you step inside and tell us that long story, Carpenter?"

"It's Robert," he replied. "And of course. Lead the way."

* * *

The Queen's throne room was missing its normal number of aristocratic admirers, which was a sure sign that something serious was about to go down. A week ago March would have put this down to the impending need to have Jack taken care of: but considering that she'd been perfectly willing to declare him fodder for the ravens in front of everyone he had a feeling that something even more screwball was going on.

"Carpenter has escaped," the Queen said bluntly after the doors had swung shut behind him. "We're keeping it quiet for now, but word is bound to get out sooner rather than later, unless he's found and brought back. I want you to do it- quick as you can."

That was a sensible thought- it must have been the King's. March spared a glance over at His Royal Cuckold, who, predictably, had a dull, slightly besotted look about him. Stupid sod.

"I thought we agreed I'd have time to make sure Hatter's brain stays the shape it ought," March replied. "All that work will be for nothing if he snaps back into Alice mode."

"The process is sound," said one of the Tweedles. March couldn't be bothered to tell which was which at the moment.

"It has never failed," added the other.

"I thought you said Carpenter had escaped," March drawled. The twins scowled.

"That was an entirely different process!"

"My brother is correct. It wasn't designed to withstand familiar settings and people. Hatter's was."

"Well, tough titties, you still promised me time with him," March said, giving up on logic as a bad job. "If you think I'm going to give that up to chase after your runaway scientist you got another thing coming."

The Queen's face turned beet red, and he continued "And don't think of threatening me with the lab again. Carpenter was running that show, the rest of them couldn't find their ass with both hands and a map."

"A word in your ear, sweetest," the King said, before the Queen could say something hasty that probably _would_ give him a flamingo head.

He whispered. March wished he had eyes to roll, and contented himself with pretending to check a nonexistent watch instead.

"Upon reflection," the Queen announced. March snorted. "I've decided to grant you some time. We have the Looking Glass, and the Tea production will not suffer greatly in the next few days. But I want you tracking him within three days at the very most!"

March bowed as sarcastically as he could and made to leave.

"And March," the Queen called after him.

He turned around.

"We only need Carpenter alive. You can kill whoever he's hiding with."

March could have smiled. "Even if it's your son?"

"If it's my son, bring me back his head. Whatever you do to the body is entirely at your discretion,"

March bowed, genuinely this time, and walked away whistling. Why shouldn't he? He was alive, he had his old partner back, and very shortly he'd be taking a very long bloodbath. Life was good.


	5. Castled Kings, Part 1

Duchess's contacts were as promised: the only hitch in their plan was the fact that her father had apparently grown tired of waiting for her and decided to rescue himself, and take a Club Suit/resistance spy names Felix with him. Reactions to this news were variable: Caterpillar promised to check with the Resistance members Felix was most likely to be hiding with, Dodo made annoyed and annoying noises about the fact that she was still sleeping in what he considered to be _his_ library, and Owl had patted her consolingly on the head for an awkward length of time. For her part, Alice avoided Jack and Duchess like the plague and took Hatter's boat out to check up on Charlie.

She'd been grateful for the motorboat lessons her infrequent but memorable fishing trips with her father had given her when she first recovered it. This was her fourth trip on it since, and she was familiar enough with the craft to allow her thought to center around something other than the water. And boy, did she ever have some _thoughts_.

The first and biggest one was that things had been simpler when she'd first arrived. Sure, she had absolutely no idea what was going on or where she was, but that had forced her to narrow her priorities. Get Jack and get home: there wasn't anything else she could do. That had changed a bit after she allowed Mad March to capture her, but just a bit; her itinerary then read: get her father, figure out what Jack's deal was, and go home. The Jabberwock and the heights and the politics hadn't mattered, really, couldn't matter. Nothing in this strange world mattered except getting her friends and family out of it and forgetting any of this ever happened.

Things were more complicated now. She knew Jack was safe- or about as safe as you could be in Wonderland- but wasn't entirely sure what he was to her anymore, and doubted that he would be following him back through the Looking Glass. Her father was in Wonderland somewhere, looking for her, but when they found him, would he really be her father, or just bait in a trap? Even if it he had remembered, Caterpillar was right; he'd feel responsible for what he'd done as Carpenter and want to stay to make things right. She couldn't leave her father, not after years of searching for him. She couldn't leave Charlie to go back to living amid the corpses of his fellow Knights. She couldn't leave all the people who were now dependent upon her to make the trip out to get them food. She couldn't leave Caterpillar and Dodo to talk over everyone's heads.

She couldn't leave Wonderland, period.

There was another reason why she could leave, of course, although she didn't like thinking about him. Duchess' contacts had confirmed that he was alive, but not in good shape. The Tweedles still had him, evidently. She remembered how terrified and discombobulated she had felt in the Truth Room and shuddered. They'd had her for less than an hour: she couldn't even imagine what it would be like to be at their mercy for over a week. And if it weren't for her, he'd still be in his Tea Shop, toeing the line with the Queen none the wiser.

She couldn't leave Wonderland. It was Hatter's home.

* * *

They didn't believe him- but they didn't seem to disbelieve him enough to kill him outright, which lent Robert enough confidence to continue as honestly as possible. Felix's eyebrows had nearly disappeared into his curls and Lory kept shooting him sidelong looks while fussing over the tea things. Eaglet watched him steadily through the whole thing, not blinking, and when he'd finally finished he nodded to himself, and said "That's quite a story."

"We're in Wonderland," Robert replied. "If stories can't count for something here…"

"You seem to have acclimated well, for an Oyster," Lory sniffed, setting down the tea tray. Felix reached out and grabbed the entire bowl of wafers and began to eat at a furious pace, causing Eaglet to frown slightly.

"Until yesterday I couldn't remember I was an Oyster," Robert replied. "I couldn't remember I had a daughter, or a wife- I don't even know if I still have a wife. She could have filed for divorce. She probably thinks I abandoned them…"

He trailed off into more private thoughts until Lory coughed loudly. "We can send word along through the grapevine. See if anyone else is willing to hear you out."

"They should want to," Robert said. "Being Carpenter means that I know more about what keeps that place running than anyone else."

"In the mean time," she continued, as though he hadn't said anything at all, "You can stay in the basement. We've got a storage cubical with a cot in it, you'll be comfortable enough there."

"I can't go out to spread the word today," Felix said, pausing in his wafer decimation to fix himself a large cup of tea. "At least three of my ribs are broken, I'm going to need to wrap them up and rest a bit first."

"You look like you were jumped by hooligans outside a pub as well," Eaglet complained. "When you're finished eating us out of house and home you can move into the back. I'll leave the medical kit out for you, you can use that to tend to your injuries."

"Don't mind if I do," Felix replied, turning back to the wafers.

Eaglet turned back to him, staring again. "Is that my cue to curl up in the storage cubical?" Robert asked after an uncomfortable moment.

'Oh no, we'll escort you down for that," Eaglet told him. "That's your cue to drink your tea."

* * *

Hatter was thinking. And sneaking out of the infirmary, but he was a very clever person, and could manage both at the same time.

Mostly he was thinking about the frayed little patch that was the sum of his information about his life, and trying to find any loose threads he could use to reconstruct the rest. He didn't like have great big whopping holes in his head, practically speaking, because he knew he'd kept things from March and didn't want them coming back to bite them both in the arse because he'd been neglecting them. Less practically speaking, he felt like half a man; he was worse than useless, he was floundering, and that wouldn't do at all.

So he thought as he snuck out of his little corner of the ward. March was the biggest figure in his life, as far as he could tell. He'd done something that had made Hatter extremely grateful, been a steady, constant presence throughout. He was Hatter's friend, hell, he'd even go as far as to say that he was the closest thing to family he had.

But there was no getting around the fact that he was absolutely insane, and didn't have full control over than insanity even at the best of times. It wasn't directed towards him, mostly, but that didn't mean that he didn't spend a lot of his time trying to contain the damage, and direct March's urge to kill and maim and hurt onto specific and deserving targets. Very nearly everyone was a fair target otherwise, from the people he was paid to kill to their families to random passersby on the street. It was terrifying enough that by the end of his old memories he could remember anticipating something better- although what it was, he couldn't begin to figure out. He could only think that it must have been something which he thought would have helped March as much as himself, because the man still felt like a sort of psychotic older brother.

And everything was tied up in March, even the dangling loose ends he was so interested in, Hatter mused, stealing the clothing out from the chest of a post-operatively drugged Suit. He could remember looking up 'homicidal mania', but couldn't remember how he knew how to read, let alone where the book was from. He remembered being very excited for the "Serenity" flavor of Tea when it came out, but couldn't recall ever having seriously drunk the stuff. He also remembered that there was something big that he absolutely could not let March know, something dangerous not only for him, but for others…

But as far as he could tell, there were no others. It was just him, and March, and a world full of marks, so who was he worried about?

So, as Hatter sauntered pass the nurse on duty with a nonchalance that completely covered for the fact that he was wearing a stolen suit, Hatter began to contemplate things that began with the letter 'T': threads, terror, Thyme, text, Tea…

* * *

Duck was not a very patient man by nature. He was, more often and more likely, a very _impatient_ man, because he often found that patience was a coward's excuse for not acting. This made his involvement in the Resistance a conflicted one, at times, but he couldn't fault them for getting results when they did act. They were very rarely the desired results, exactly, but he knew from experience that there wasn't much a single artillery man could do on his own, and that coordinating a widespread network like their own was certainly difficult at the best of times. He was a soldier, but he understood that they could not comport themselves like they were in battle. So he volunteered to do things which might at least be useful, like setting up living areas for the refugees, guarding the north-northwest entrance and helping cultivate more supplies for those still living in the Great Library.

He was beginning to regret that last one, though. It wasn't the work, exactly, although the sun had burnt his skin to a crisp with more speed than he remembered being possible, which didn't make farming any more pleasant. It was Charlie.

He understood that this was his territory, he understood that he had been alone for a very long time, and he understood that he had some affinity for magic, but none of that seemed enough to compensate for the fact that the man was completely devoid of _sense_. His camp was completely haphazard, his inventions were ludicrously complex, and his manner was extremely off-putting. And heaven help the man if he heard so much as one more…

"Galadoon De Booshe!" Charlie cried, and even though this time the soil overturned into a neatly-tilled patch on the first go, Duck threw down his trowel and started towards him.

"Now see here!" he called. "Do you really have to be quite so loud!"

"Be glad he's not singing," Alice called out from up the path. "It's infectious- before long you'd be singing too."

"Lady Alice!" Charlie called, joyously, forgetting Duck entirely. "Back for more cabbages already?"

"What can I say, people are hungry," Alice replied, accepting a hug from the batty old man. She wasn't looking well, although the longer she talked with the knight the more color returned to her cheeks. After a perfunctory inquiry into the health of the Resistance, the Library, Dodo, Caterpillar and Owl, Duck left them too it. At least someone was getting something out of the knight's company beside a twitch in the eye.

* * *

March was livid. Hatter had apparently taken it upon himself to mozy on out of the infirmary and no one knew where exactly he was. Terrifying the nurses had done no good; neither had pounding the ever-living snot out of the Club who'd suggested that he sit quietly and wait for his return. Like he'd do that! He left for just a few hours to pick out the Suits and now all the previous weeks' work might be undone.

Fuck it. When he found Hatter he was going to lock that kid right back up in a cell, relapse or no. It wouldn't do for him to go wandering about, picking up ideas like he did without March to filter out the bad ones, would it?

He went tearing through the Casino until finally one of the smarter Suit pointed him in the right direction before making herself scarce. Hatter was on a terrace, looking out over the lake towards the city. Or he would have been, if his gaze had been focused on it. As it was he just stared at the middle distance, murmuring to himself occasionally.

March's anger left him in an abrupt rush, and with a sigh he settled himself next to Hatter on the railing.

"You're a mess, Hatter," he told him apologetically.

Hatter snorted. "And why is that, March?"

"The Resistance fucked you up," March told him. It was the truth really; if Hatter had never chosen to help one of the Resistance's leading ladies instead of letting him catch her, they'd have remained thick as the thieves they were without the need to brainwash and the made-in-all-seriousness death threats.

"Is that it? Really?" Hatter asked. "Because there are huge chunks of my life missing. And I mean huge! Gigantic! Decades of my life are just nothing but blank space and I can't see why anyone else would want them!"

"I always kind of thought you had contacts in the Resistance," March said. "Maybe that was what they were after?"

Hatter gaped. "Really?"

"Yeah. You hit your books the way other people hit their Tea," March said. "I don't know of anywhere else to get a book that isn't Resistance owned and operated."

"So, you think they were covering their tracks?" Hatter asked, looking down at the three splints that remained on his fingers with a frown.

"It wouldn't surprise me," March said, and in all honesty it wouldn't have either."They just tried to overthrow the Queen again, and came closer than they should have been able to. The probably didn't want you to be able to tell us where to find the ones who escaped the crackdown."

Hatter digested this, for a moment, and then asked, almost timidly. "You didn't mind about the books?"

"Nah," March replied. That was completely honest: he really hadn't given it any thought at all. It was just another one of Hatter's quirks, like his love of loud colors and his abhorrence of clocks. He knew better now. "I work with the Queen because she's a steady employer." By the time the Resistance's balls had dropped enough to consider having anyone killed he'd done enough jobs for the Crown that they wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire. "Politics doesn't factor into it."

Hatter relaxed a bit, and then said, in a worried tone "And your head?"

If he could have, March would have smiled. There was the dependent, needy kid he lost over a decade ago. "I got careless. Luckily, the Queen was even more careless and forgot that there's no better assassin in Wonderland, and so I got bought back even after the old head was too bashed in to use."

Hatter nodded, then smirked. "Are you sure it wasn't to get out of your promise to find a hat to wear?"

March couldn't roll his eyes, so he looked up at the sky to convey his fond exasperation. "You and your hats."

"You'd look good in a hat," Hatter protested. "Well, you'd have looked good with your old head. The new one isn't much good for anything that isn't a fez."

March shook the head in question. "Listen, while I'd love to stand here and let you haberdash around me, I got to get up early tomorrow and hunt down one of the Resistance bastards. You on the other hand, have to go back to the infirmary, and try to sleep off some more of that damage."

"Would now be a good time to tell you that my pain medication has worn off and I can't take a step without wanting to curl up in a ball and cry?" Hatter asked.

March sighed, and slung an arm under the kid's shoulders to help support his weight. They hobbled forwards a step, and Hatter sucked in a pained breath, but continued. March put a halt to his budding plans to have Hatter re-imprisoned, and together they made their slow way back to the infirmary.

* * *

Dodo took another look at the figures, which stubbornly didn't change into anything more favorable as he glared at them. Their food supplies had taken a sharp drop since Hatter had left, and although the supply line Alice had secured was a help, they were going to run out of food within the month at current rates of consumption.

He supposed he could see about sending more people out to the City of the Knights, but as being caught living outside the city limits was a death sentence, he was reluctant to authorize anything that would draw attention to both the refugees and what was now their main source of food.

He massaged his temples against the oncoming throb of a headache, which spiked at the sound of incoming footsteps.

"Oh what now!" he shouted as Caterpillar rounded the corner, followed closely by a red-haired man in a green Suit.

Caterpillar blinked mildly, blank and unflappable as always, the cad. "Dodo, this is Bill, our contact with the Lizards."

"How do you do?" Bill said hurried. "Anyway, we've got Carpenter: he's holed up with Felix round Lory and Eaglet's place. Do you want him bought here or am I taking you to him?"

* * *

"Should you be the one guarding the door?" Alice asked as she entered the Library, frowning. "Isn't that a bit risky? What if someone recognizes you?"

Jack ignored her questions; she'd forget she asked soon enough anyway. "Alice, we've located your father."

Alice sucked in a sharp breath and sank onto one of the bus seats.

"He's safe," Jack continued. "But on the other side of the city. We've got a contact with the Resistance who works in the Lizards, he'll bring you out to verify that he is himself again, and then he can help us plan how to bring down the Casino. He'll be back around nightfall."

Alice gaped. "We're going to bring down the Casino?"

"We don't have a choice, from what I understand. Word has spread that the Hospital of Dreams has ceased to function as a Resistance stronghold, and it's hurt our credibility. The smugglers won't negotiate with us, and supplies are already running low. We're in real danger of starving."

"But the food from Charlie's-" She stopped and then shook her head. "It's not enough, is it?"

"Not nearly enough, I'm afraid," Jack replied, gently. He pushed the blue button and the bus began to descend. He waiting until it jerked to a stop before continuing. "I know this isn't how you wanted to be reunited with your father. And I promise you, as soon as I can I'll get you both home-"

Alice cut him off by making a slashing motion in the air. "I've done some thinking. I don't think I can leave."

Jack sat down directly opposite her, and she continued: "Not for a while, I think. I have too much to do that I can't get done until after the Queen falls-"

She stopped, biting on her lip.

"Alice," Jack said as gently as he could. "You don't owe me anything."

"I owe Hatter," she told him. "I owe Hatter a lot."

And just like that, this conversation became decidedly more awkward. Jack considered: there was an exit handy. He could leave now, and likely as not Alice wouldn't bring the subject up again. But this was perhaps one of the few parts of his life that he could get a definitive answer on. So much was in turmoil now…

"What exactly is Hatter to you?" he asked. When she didn't respond, he pressed a little. "You seemed very friendly. More than friendly-"

"So do you and Duchess," Alice said.

Jack fought off the urge to justify himself: she hadn't meant it as a jab. This wasn't about who was cheating on whom. Actually, she seemed just as lost as he was.

"I don't know what Duchess and I are to each other," he answered honestly. "It's… all very complicated. I don't think we'll be able to resolve it satisfactorily until the dust begins to settle."

"I know what you mean," Alice said, with a small laugh. "I've known him less than a week, and yet…"

Jack nodded, disappointment flowing over profound relief. "Where does that leave us?"

"As friends, I hope," Alice said.

Jack nodded slowly. He could be friends with Alice. "Well then. As your friend, would you like me to accompany you when you go to your father?"

"No," Alice said, quickly. Then she winced and softened her words: "I'd like as small an audience as possible, this time."

That it could well be a trap, and it would be better for the Queen to get her hands on Alice than on Jack, or them both was something they both knew and didn't say. They sat there is contemplative silence for a while, before Owl knocked timidly on the door.

"Is everything alright in there?" she asked.

"We're fine," Alice called quickly.

"We better go before rumors start spreading," Jack said.

"Start?" Alice asked, teasingly. Jack groaned, and opened the door.

Alice exited, then turned around. "Jack?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry about throwing you in the lake," Alice said. "The light was really bad- I didn't know it was you."

"Don't apologize to me, apologize to my suit," Jack said.

Alice laughed, and left. Jack remained standing there until Owl told him to stop catching dust.

* * *

Lizards were the type of Suits which were in charge of distributing supplies throughout the city, using boats as truck as aqueducts as highways. They took the Tea from the Casino and distributed it to the Shops, collected clothing, food and other essentials for the Suit's barracks, which sounded more like gated communities than anything else. Bill was a junior manager, which was evidently a position of enough importance to puff out his cravat. He had a lovely fiancé, a bloke who was the floor manager at a Tea Shop in another part of the City entirely, and if Alice was ever in that part of town she could just drop his name and she'd be sure to get the best brews available, real tea even, and that was rarer than Jabberwock skulls these days…

Alice listened to distract herself from the butterflies swarming in her stomach. Bill, she suspected, was talking so much for the same reason.

She'd nearly gotten through to him, last time. She wondered what had done it: did he just need more time? He'd kept the watch on, after Mad March found them. Had that triggered something? Did he even remember everything? It'd been ten years in this place, ten years of not remembering who he was, thinking he was someone else. Even if he hadn't had his brain tampered with, that was a long time…

The engine cut out, and Bill parallel parked his supply runner with practiced ease.

"Here we go, Ms. Alice," he said, stepping out and offering his hand to her. He guided her through a twisty maze of concrete buildings, all alike, finally stopping at a door with a yellow-ish crack of light showing underneath.

Here we go," Alice thought as he exchanged the password. The door swung open, and an elderly lady ushered them inside.

Her father was standing next to the table. She stared. He stared back.

"Jellybean-" he began. Alice threw herself at him.

"Oh Jellybean- Alice- I'm sorry," he said. She started to cry, tightening her arms around him and burying her face in his neck so that it wasn't so evident. "I'm so sorry. I should have known the moment I saw you."

"Daddy," she croaked.

"Alice, don't cry," he murmured. "Please don't cry."

"Yes, don't," The old man said, pushing against them on his way to the back hall. "All that salt water will ruin the woodwork. Oi Felix, your ride's here!"

Alice carefully untangled herself from her father, as the woman turned to them and whispered: "Take him with you when you go. He's a dear, but he'll eat us out of house and home otherwise."

Alice nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak yet. A curly-haired man, Felix, she guessed, appeared in the hall, limping slightly.

"It's you!" Bill cried from behind them.

"What do you mean it's you?" Felix scoffed. "You never even hinted you were one of us, Bill."

"Well of course I didn't, you're a pretty convincing Suit!" Bill scoffed. "Speaking of, we're leaving. Everyone have everything?"

"Not even close, but I do have what I've got," Felix replied.

"Excellent, let's go."

* * *

Felix got shotgun, the better to gossip with Bill about all the near-missed and frights they'd given each other over the years. Robert found he didn't mind sitting in the storage compartment with Alice: it would give him a chance to learn some of what he'd been missing.

"We had to sell the house," Alice said. "We live in the city, now. It's close to Mom's practice, and the apartment isn't all that bad. It was a wreck when we moved in, but we've been slowly, _slowly_ redoing it and it's pretty respectable now."

Robert nodded. "How is your mother?"

"She's doing okay," Alice said. "She took you not being there better than I did, I think. She hasn't been dating again, or anything, but she's at peace with the idea, I think. Or maybe the troubles that came with raising me were just too distracting."

"Oh?" Robert asked, heart sinking.

"I never stopped looking for you. Never. Your name and picture is in every database dealing with missing persons- I've had people contact me from Koka-freaking-tahi!"

"Hawaii?" Robert asked.

"New Zealand," Alice corrected him agitatedly. "And all this time, all I had to do was walk through the mirror in that moldering old warehouse!"

Robert swallowed thickly. She had to understand- it wasn't her responsibility to rescue him. He should have remembered sooner. She shouldn't have had to step on foot in Wonderland for him to recall that he had a daughter.

"Alice-" he began. She didn't appear to hear him.

"I used to break into that place to make out with guys in high school!" she cried.

"Alice!"

She blinked, then looked horrified.

"I'm going to need a list of those guys, so that I can retroactively threaten them with a pointed object," he said.

"A list? Of guys I've dated?" Alice said, despondently. "That's a pretty long list. Not that I've slept with them all, or anything, but- but you don't really want to hear this, do you?"

No, actually, he wanted nothing to do with Alice's sex life, now that he spent half a second thinking about it. But he did have a duty as a father… "Where does this Hatter guy fall into things?"

"You've met Hatter?" Alice asked. "Is he- how is- the Resistance's contacts said that he was one of the Tweedles' cases, and that he was in the infirmary. What does that mean, exactly?"

Robert frowned- Hatter hadn't been in the infirmary when he left, but if he was there now it was possible that the Tweedles had finished with him. Which meant…

"Jellybean, you're really not going to want to hear this," Robert began.

* * *

Caterpillar studied the drawings Felix and Carpenter- or Robert, as he preferred to be called- had made of the Casino. It was an activity made slightly more difficult, if more worthwhile, by the fact that Jack kept amending it to add passageways and hidey-holes the other two knew nothing about.

"I've spent a lot of time trying to get out from under my mother's thumb," Jack said when asked. Caterpillar heartily approved.

"As long as we can get to here, I can release the Oysters and overload the emotion distilleries," Robert said. "The piping runs through the core of the building and right alongside several of the main support struts- feedback from the wrong emotions mixing will bring the whole building down."

"Will there be enough time to evacuate the building?" Jack asked.

"Who cares?" Dodo asked.

Felix shot him a disbelieving look while Jack, used to Dodo's default setting of 'vitriol' by now, answered calmly "Well, the Oysters, for one. Our agents on the inside, for another."

Dodo made an incoherent grumbling noise before falling silent once more.

"The problem is going to be getting there. It's been more than long enough for them to notice that I'm gone, they'll be assuming that I've found you and you'll be pumping me for everything I know," Robert continued. "They'll be expecting a small force of people to try breaking into the Casino."

"So we need something to distract the Suits," Caterpillar concluded.

All eyes turned to Felix, who shrugged. "I was a Club. They don't do fighting."

"And you never had any contact with the Spades," Dodo drawled.

"You didn't know? Those guys are always itching for a fight," Felix shot back. "Give them a reason and they'll come down on you as hard they can."

A grim silence fell down upon the group.

"Duck and I could distract them," Owl said suddenly. "He's good with explosions, and is even more itchy than those Suits too, I'll wager."

"Do we have enough resources to draw them away from internal security?" Jack asked.

"No," Dodo said, at the same time Caterpillar said "Perhaps."

"I couldn't help but notice that you are sitting on a very large number of bullets," Caterpillar elaborated when Dodo looked at him askance.

Dodo snorted. "We have plenty of ammunition, but nothing to fire it with. Hatter was completely incapable of getting us anything else." Alice, who had been staring blankly for most of the meeting contrary to her normal habits, seemed to rouse herself at that. She bristled, and glared at the librarian.

"Duck can still use the gunpowder," Owl said.

"Pity," Caterpillar mused. "If I'd known you were hard up for guns I would have sent you some of mine."

Doubtlessly by now they'd been confiscated, a double loss for the Resistance since they could be used by the Suits against them. Having gotten the hint that he was being blamed, Dodo simply glowered back.

"I don't need a gun," Alice volunteered. "I wouldn't know what to do with it, anyway."

"You're not going!" Robert protested.

"Yes, I am," Alice said firmly. Robert opened his mouth to protest further, but she cut him off. "I'm a black belt, Dad. I'm probably the most qualified person here in terms of hand-to-hand combat. I'm going."

Robert frowned. Dodo scoffed.

"You do realize that there are more important things at stake here than your boyfriend," he sneered, then shot a significant look at Jack. "Well, your _other_ boyfriend."

Jack opened his mouth, but as was her wont Alice beat him to the punch. "Isn't Hatter still necessary to get the smugglers to cooperate with you? Isn't my romantic life none of your business? Isn't it also completely incidental to the fact that we're storming the Casino?"

Dodo blinked.

"I still say Duck would make a pretty good distraction," Owl pressed.

"I'll go get him," Alice said, standing up and all but running out of the room. She stopped at the doorway and turned around. "Please, please have something approaching a concrete plan by the time I get back?"

"Don't worry, we'll be ready," Duchess said, causing everyone in the room who wasn't Caterpillar to jump.

"Thank you," Alice said, gratefully, and left.

"Now," Duchess said, standing. "We can free the Oysters and destroy the Casino. We're also going to need to make sure that the Stone of Wonderland isn't buried in the rubble, and have yet to decide who is actually going on this expedition…"

* * *

The alarm for the northwest perimeter went off with a loud caw, and Charlie once more fell out of a hammock that he hadn't quite broken in yet. From across the camp he heard Duck groan at the interruption to his sleep.

"Quiet!" he hissed. He could here Duck stumble to his feet, and just beyond that there was the sound of footsteps.

"It's me!" Lady Alice's voice said.

"Ah!" Charlie said, delighted. He managed to lever himself back up into a standing position, and brushed the dirt off his escutcheon. "What brings you back at this time of night?"

"We're attacking the Casino," she announced. There was a collective intake of breath as the Resistance members in camp proved themselves to be shameless eavesdroppers. "My father thinks he can bring it down from the inside, but we're going to need a distraction."

"A distraction?" Charlie murmured, thinking furiously.

"Yes," Lady Alice looked around, stopping when her eyes fell upon Duck. "I've heard from Owl that you're good with explosives?"

"Yes," Duck said, bringing himself up proudly. "I was in charge of an artillery corps once, you know."

Well no wonder the man was a lousy farmer! But would one man, even with a lot of explosions, might not be enough to keep the Suit's interest for long. They might need something a little more… yes, yes that would do nicely.

"Lady Alice!" Charlie called, then realized that he was interrupting her conversation with Duck. Wincing, he pressed forwards anyway. "Would the Knight's weaponry be any use to you?"

"What, swords and lances against guns?" Duck scoffed. Charlie suppressed the urge to roll his eyes- it was childish, and this was a serious conversation.

"And catapults and arrows against unarmored bodies," Charlie pointed out. "I've kept the siege machinery in good repair."

Lady Alice still seemed doubtful. "Are you sure that would be okay?"

"Of course!" Charlie said. "I know it doesn't match up well, but we seem to be marching outgunned either way. At least this way the distance between our might and theirs is a bit closer."

Lady Alice nodded. "I get that- but Charlie- is it okay? I got the impression that that equipment was a part of the Knight's resting place."

Oh. That was very noble of her. "I am certain they would want it to be used in defiance of the Queen of Hearts," he told her. "In fact, they would likely take it as an insult if we were to pass them over."

"Do we have enough people for that?" Duck asked, frowning.

"I'll have to check. There are plenty of people in the Library, but I don't know how many of them would be willing to fight," Alice said. "Duck, you need to come back with me, and see what you can do with the supplies we have."

Duck nodded, and picked up the bundle of his belongs he'd been using as a pillow. "I'm ready, let's go."

"We'll get some of the lighter equipment ready for transport upon your return," Charlie promised.

"Thank you," Alice said, and then the two of them began to make their way back to the shore. Charlie turned and began to make his way towards one of the larger crossbows, then stopped when he realized that no one was following him.

"Well, what are you all doing still laying there?" he called. "This is no time for a nap! We have work to do!"

A few people groaned, but for the most part they left their bedrolls with more quiet anxiety than anything else. Charlie could understand that. He liked to think that he'd proven himself when he'd rescued Lady Alice from the Suits, but deep down inside, he was still afraid that he would be too terrified on the battlefield to do anything but run.

* * *


	6. Castled Kings, Part 2

The day March was supposed to begin the hunt for Carpenter dawn clear and cool. He slept through it, straight on till mid-morning, then got up and had a leisurely shower- or as leisurely as it could be, what with the need to keep his head in a plastic bag and all.

The Queen said he had to get started today. She was less specific about when today than she might have been, though.

He wandered around the Casino for a while before grabbing a late brunch in the mess hall the Diamond birds normally ate in. They tittered at his arrival and gave him wide berth, which was fine by him. He was just there to enjoy the view while he ate, after all.

Halfway through shoving a platter of bromeliad scones down the hole in his throat, he noticed that the tension in the room had skyrocketed again. He frowned, surveying the room: the Tweedles hadn't entered, so what was all the fuss about?

He watched as several more broads hurried in, moving coltishly in their heels and twittering among themselves.

"Hey," March called, finally. "What's got your panties all in a twist?"

They fell silent. He sighed, and stood up. "I said, what's happening?"

One of the dancers piped up as he advanced. "The knights are attacking!"

"The knights?" March repeated incredulously. "The knights? They were all wiped out years ago!"

"Evidently not," the Diamond said. "You can see them out the windows on the east side, if you don't believe me."

He didn't, not for a moment, but he left to go have a look anyway.

* * *

Charlie waved his fist at the Casino, shouting to the heavens. "Come out you cowards! Come and face the wrath of Asclepius!"

Owl wondered for a moment who or what Asclepius was, before being distracted by the deranged grin on Dodo's face. It was a truly terrifying sight, more so even than the sword he wore on his hip. No wonder the Suits weren't coming out.

But even as she thought it, the familiar black-clad mob of the Suits began to pour out of the Casino, and there was the whizzing of flamingos overhead. Owl clutched her shotgun to herself as she and Dormouse waited for the inevitable, watching as dozens of arrows as long as a man were launched to meet the Suits.

* * *

Alice sat in the grass next to her father, and waited. The plan Duchess and Jack had come up with was a fairly simple one: one of her contacts would let them in through the back door when the Queen had ordered her Suits out front to defend against the attack. Once inside they would make their separate ways; Jack and Duchess would go to the Throne Room and secure the Ring, Alice, Felix and her father would go to the laboratories, free the Oysters, empty the cell block, and essentially activate the self-destruct.

Hatter… she'd kicked up as much of a fuss as she felt she could get away with, but there was no getting around the fact that searching the entire Casino for a man who may or may not be brainwashed into thinking he was their enemy and may or may not be bed-ridden would take up more time than they had available to them. She would have to hope that one of their parties ran into Hatter, or else that he evacuated the Casino before it collapsed. She couldn't just leave her father with only Felix for protection: even if he was armed, his claim that Clubs didn't fight made her leery of his ability to protect him- at the very least he was out of practice.

Hopefully, if he was still laid up in the infirmary, someone would help him out before the building exploded. Or they had enough time after sabotaging the Tea distilleries to do a little poking around before getting out themselves. Or Duchess' contact would be willing to look for Hatter while everyone else was occupied. Or any number of the thousands of things that could go wrong didn't and he got out of there alive and relatively healthy.

"That's our signal, I think," Felix muttered as the whine of flamingos became audible.

"Okay," Alice said. "Let's do this."

"Quickly," Jack added.

They crept along the base of the building, crouching beneath windows pressing themselves against the wall until they came to the door. The door opened, and one of the Clubs who had escorted her to the Truth Room poked his head out.

"Darrel?" Felix asked, nose wrinkling in confusion.

"Hello Felix," Darrel said, tugging on his goatee… thing. "I suspect we'll be having these sorts of conversations a lot in the coming days."

"We should be so lucky," Duchess said, ushering him aside and gesturing for the rest of them to follow. There was the sound of a distant explosion and they hurried to comply.

* * *

Duck brushed some errant sod off his jacket, grinning frumiously.

"Down with the bloody Queen! Down with the bloody King!" he shouted as the Suits recoiled from the smoking ditch that now separated them from the Resistance. Then as the thought struck him, he added "And enough fucking cabbages!"

"Oi!" Charlie protested.

"Oh don't bother," Dodo ordered. "There's no reasoning with him when he's in this sort of mood."

"That's right, I am perfectly unreasonable," Duck agreed, still smiling.

Owl, he noticed though, was frowning. "Do you think that might have scared them too much? Mightn't they just go back inside?"

Dormie shrugged. Dodo scoffed. "Only if they're less afraid of the Queen than they are of us."

Duck turned back, and then frowned. "I don't think they are…" The Suits seemed to be moving towards them, running towards them as a matter of fact. The flamingos came around for another pass.

"Incoming!" Charlie yelled.

Owl sighed, and released the counterweight on the trebuchet, which catapulted a large rock right into the path of the advancing Suits. All turned to stare at her.

"What?" Owl said, blinking behind her glasses. "Isn't that what 'incoming' means?"

* * *

Hatter had gotten out of bed at the first sign of panicked activity, and repeated the same process of filching clothes he'd used before, with the added step of pocketing some more painkillers before he left. That's how he found himself staring out the window at a sight that shouldn't be possible to see.

"Hatter!" March called from the down the hall. Hatter didn't turn around, but watched his approach in the translucent reflection in the window.

"Those are knights," Hatter said slowly when March stopped just behind him. As they watched, several large crossbows were launched towards the Suits, who ran to take cover behind a steaming pile of dirt Hatter was pretty sure hadn't been there before.

"They ain't knights," March replied shortly, grabbing him by his shoulder. Hatter winced as it began to throb again, and March loosened his grip slightly. "They ain't knights, and we gotta get you back to the infirmary."

"Oh, come off it," Hatter snapped, twisting out of his grasp. "I'm fine, especially if I don't move more than I have to. And what do you mean they aren't knights? What else could they be?"

"A distraction," March said, reaching for him again. Hatter backed off. March sighed, and smacked his hand against the ceramic of his nose. "Look, Hatter, even if they were knights, how long do you think they'll last anyway? We have guns remember?"

"Yes…" Hatter replied, wincing again as he felt a pang of disappointment.

"And whoever is out there knows that as well as we do. So why would a bunch of people start waving swords and catapults right under the Queen's nose?"

"To draw attention to themselves," Hatter replied instantly. "So you think they're the Resistance. That they're diverting Suits from whomever they're sending inside. And that whoever's here is going to come after me."

"You got it," March replied, putting his hand back on Hatter's should and using it to steer him back towards the infirmary.

"Wait," Hatter said, turning around to face the older man. "I shouldn't be in the infirmary, then. They know you found me and what a state I was in, that's exactly where they'll expect me to be."

March didn't move, blank ceramic features mere inches from Hatter's face. If they could move, they'd be arranged into the Look- the one March gave him when he knew Hatter was right, but found it dead inconvenient. Hatter could tell. It was a Look he'd gotten many, many times before.

"Listen to me," Hatter told him sternly. "I'm the clever one."

"You're too damn smart for your own good, that's what you are," March snorted. "Tell you what, go pick a room to hole up in, I'll come find you when this is over and you're in too much pain to walk."

"Won't be necessary," Hatter said, retrieve the painkillers from his pocket and brandishing them. "Because I'm more clever than you."

March snorted, and began to walk back the way he came. "Don't get into any trouble while I'm too busy to bail you out!"

"If you're not going to be there to introduce us, I think trouble and I will stay at opposite ends of the party," Hatter called back.

March made a rude noise and an even ruder hand gesture before disappearing around a corner. Hatter felt the smile fall off his face.

His first inclination had been awe- a good kind of surprise you felt when you realized that only half the fairy tales your parents told you were lies. His second had been to root for the knights, to mentally egg them on as the Suits advanced towards them. That wasn't how someone who had contacts in the Resistance only because of their books thought. It wasn't how they felt.

Which begged the question: who was he, then?

* * *

Duchess walked uncertainly along the ill-lit passage way. This part of the plan was all up to Jack; he was adamant that he knew a secret passage that led from the fitness center to the Throne Room. Of course, they had to have gotten to the fitness center first, and the passage in question seemed to be taking a lot longer than she thought it really ought.

"Are you sure you know where we're going?" Duchess asked, ducking around a cobweb.

"Yes, dear," Jack said, then cringed violently enough that she could make it out even in the dim lighting. Duchess could sympathize; he had just trodden on the toes of the elephant in the room and now it was trumpeting loudly.

"We will talk," Duchess told him. She couldn't afford to phrase it like a question, or a request. "But later, after this is all sorted."

"Fair enough," Jack agreed, then after a beat, added. "I know where we are. We just need to take the ladder at the end of this corridor, and we'll end up just behind the drapes behind the throne."

Reassured, Duchess continued after him.

* * *

Robert kept trying to lead the way, which put a hamper on Felix's ability to protect him. Not that his ability seemed to be much needed, since every Suit they'd come across had ignored them and scurried away as quickly as they could, but the sentiment remained.

"Are they supposed to be doing this?" Alice asked incredulously after the seventh or so time this had happened. "Because it's too regular not to be a coincidence, but I feel like it might also be too stupid to be planned."

"Good question," Felix said, reaching to push Robert behind him again. "They _are_ Clubs- they're pretty much just supposed to shout for help when they see trouble."

"So why aren't they shouting?" Alice asked.

Felix couldn't come up with a better answer than "I don't know" so said nothing and pushed Robert behind him again.

"Felix," Alice called. "Why wouldn't they be shouting?"

He still didn't have an answer, but thankfully one presented itself at the far end of the hall.

"Ickle nine? Aw, look at you, you almost look tough holding that gun," Mad March said. The three of them stopped in place.

"Now- which one of you ladies is the broad Hatter kept calling out for again?"

* * *

March had told him to find a room. The way he said it made Hatter think the he'd probably been thinking of a broom cupboard or something, and also left him with a fair amount of wiggle room as to what sort of room he actually ended up in.

"Don't mind me," Hatter said amiably as he closed the door to the security booth. There. Now he was inside, secure, and had one hell of a view. "I'm just here to observe."

The Clubs shrugged and went back to their duties, and Hatter began to scan the many screens displaying the vantage points of the Queen's many eyes inside the Casino, looking for March- or the Resistance. Anything that might give him some answers.

* * *

The Suits had stopped their advance and backtracked a bit. The flamingos still whizzed overhead, but they stayed up high, flying useless circles up out of range of the arrows. They hadn't quite retreated, and to anyone watching from inside the Casino they would appear to be fighting the good fight, but neither side was doing much damage to the other. Amazing how great an incentive there was in not being crushed by a boulder.

"What are the chances that they'll go back inside?" Charlie asked, sounding worried. It confused him for a minute, before he remembered that Alice was in the Casino. Then he rolled his eyes.

"Not good, I should think," Dodo told him. "The Queen would have the lot of them killed, and for something like this not even the King could pardon them all."

Charlie's attention wandered visibly at that, and the Resistance fell into a disquieting silence. Every now and again one of the flamingos would dart within range, one or two arrows would answer it, and then the Suits would fall back, but for the time being the fighting had more or less been halted by the Suit's unwillingness to die in defense of their Queen, and the Resistance's knowledge that if the two groups were to face each other in close combat, well… it's not that Dodo minded the idea of hacking Suits to bits, but he did object very strongly to being shot.

"This is ridiculous," Duck said, shaking him out of his thoughts. "I should just blow the second set of explosives and be finished with it."

"Isn't that the set behind us?" Owl inquired.

"Yes," Dodo told her. "Which is why he's not going to do anything but sit tight and wait for them to get as bored as we are."

Duck snorted, but didn't move towards his detonators. Charlie however, tilted his head and stared at the Suits. "Do you think we could negotiate?"

Dodo rolled his eyes again and went to go sit underneath the trebuchet. He was surrounded by idiots.

* * *

Jack held out an arm to steady her as she alighted from the ladder. There were behind the giant cream drapes which had surrounded the Throne Room as long as she had been in Court. She'd heard it whispered that this was so because it cut down on the temptation to stare out the window when the Queen was speaking, which in turn cut down the risk of having your head chopped off. Today, she expected that it was so because otherwise the Court would be overlooking the battle, which didn't appear to be going so well. Actually…

She squinted, confused. There didn't seem to be much fighting going on. Suddenly the buzz of conversation in the Throne Room ceased. Jack grabbed her arm as the King's voice rang out.

"Okay, everyone out, she's coming and she is _not_ in a good mood!"

There were the sounds of footsteps hurrying from the room, and Jack jerked his head to the side and pulled her after him as he made his way around the circumference of the room, trying his best not to disturb the drapes. There was the sound of the double-doors opening violently, crashing against the far end of the room, and Jack stopped abruptly.

"Winston!" The Queen shrieked.

"Now my dearest," The King soothed.

"Don't you _dearest_ me when we're under attack!" She growled. "How are the knights alive? I wiped them out! I bombed them into oblivion! I set their homes aflame! I hunted their bishops down! I left their rooks to rot in prison! I killed their Queen and King myself! How could this possibly be happening?"

While the King hemmed and hawed, Jack let go of her and motioned for her to stay put. She motioned back several unflattering things about his sanity. If he was doing what she thought he was doing…

He moved forwards, pulling his gun out of his jacket pocket. Babd, Macha, and Nemain, he was! She followed him, and he spun around so violently that the draped billowed outward slightly. They both froze, but the Queen and King continued their conversation, oblivious to all else.

 _Stay hidden_ , he mouthed. _Please_.

And before she could protest he was gone again. She fumbled for her own weapon and suppressed the urge to scream. Yes, they needed to confront the Queen about the Ring before they could leave. But not like this- not now, when she was in the middle of the sort of rage that could be most easily satisfied by bloodshed. They should wait until the King talked her down a bit instead of charging in when she was liable to react with violence.

They should, but they weren't: because Jack, the love of her life, was as noble, honorable, and chivalrous as any of the Hearts had ever been, traits which at times also made him an utter imbecile.

Fine. She'd let him have his way, and when he got in over his head she'd come to his rescue. Again.

* * *

Today had been a good day for Dormie, if you measure it by the number of times he'd fallen asleep. He'd taken only four naps since the battle started, and didn't seem to have missed much because of it. When he woke up from nap number four, the battle had petered out to new lows of combat intensity; Charlie had wandered off at some point and returned balancing several large picnic baskets in a stack that looked to be slightly taller than he was. Dormie stared. He was far from the only one.

Duck walked over to where Charlie hefted the baskets on the ground, and was peaking inside each one in turn. "Did you bring a picnic to a battle?" he demanded.

"Why yes, I did," Charlie replied, reaching inside the basket he was holding and pulling out a sandwich. "Cabbage-and-rabbit sandwich?"

Duck stared at it in horror. Dormie's stomach gurgled, reminding him that it'd been a while since he'd eaten properly. Money was always a bit tight, but his wallet had reached new levels of slenderness since the Tea Shop was ransacked. He'd stayed, at first, trying to repair some of the damage March and the Suits had done, but once news of Hatter's arrest had reached him, he knew it was over. He'd fled for the Great Library, which wasn't exactly what you would call a seven-star hotel and restaurant, even if it did have some interesting gossip about Hatter and the girl he'd apparently given himself up for. She must be one hell of a woman to provoke _that_ sort of reaction, though he hadn't spoken enough to her to judge for himself.

"If he doesn't want it, I'll have it," he called, hoping down off the trebuchet. Owl jerked out of her doze at the movement, and after adjusting her glasses to make sure that she was seeing things correctly, asked "Do you have any more of the ones with cucumbers?"

"Of course," Charlie replied, handing Dormie the sandwich. He bit into it, ravenously hungry now that there was food in front of him. He reached for the next picnic basket, frowned, and handed it to Duck, who spluttered.

The presence of food- and a great deal of it- drew attention from the other defenders, which in turn drew the attention from Dodo, who had previously been occupied with shouting insults of increasing creativity at the Suits. Whether that was more for his entertainment or theirs was probably open for interpretation.

"What's all this?" Dodo asked.

"Lunch," Charlie replied, smiling. 'Which type of sandwich would you prefer? I've got cabbage-and-rabbit, cucumber-and-mollusk, turnip-and-jub-jub…"

"You bought sandwiches to a battle?" Dodo asked incredulously.

"They're delicious," Dormie pointed out.

"Shut up," Dodo ordered.

"If you don't want yours I'll have it," Dormie said anyway.

"I said, shut up," Dodo hissed.

Dormie popped the crust into his mouth instead of answering.

"Good," Dodo said, before turning back to Charlie. "Now what exactly were you thinking when you decided to take time out of preparing war machines and pack a picnic."

"I thought that I'd keep these _siege weapons_ in good repair, and that your people are decidedly underfed, you pompous son of a hedgehog," Charlie sniffed. Dodo's face purpled. "If you don't want one, then I shall give it to this young fellow over here."

He gestured Dormie, who was in the middle of licking the crumbs off his fingers.

"We're in the middle of a war!" Dodo roared.

" **And an army marches on its stomach**!" Charlie yelled back at such a loud volume that Duck jumped back several paces, clutching the sandwich he'd taken when no one was looking to his chest.

"Sorry, " Charlie apologized. "It's the escutcheon- it has a sort of echo effect, you know."

"You're mad," Dodo said flatly.

"I'm full," Charlie corrected him.

"Are we allowed more than one sandwich?" Owl asked.

"Yes, there's plenty go around! Help yourselves!" Charlie replied. There was a general murmur of approval, and Dormie grabbed another sandwich and headed for the trebuchet before he could be squashed by the incoming stampede. He got about halfway through it, with a pause to note that the Suits didn't seem happy about their lunch break either, before falling asleep again.

* * *

Alice stared, feeling the blood slowly creep up her face until her heart was pounding in her ears.

"Oh, that's right!" March continued. "It was Alice!" His voiced changed to Hatter's, ragged with pain. " _Alice is safe. It was worth it. Alice is safe_. I like the new duds, by the way." His voice changed back to normal abruptly. "Have you been shopping?"

"You two should go ahead," Alice said, keeping her voice as steady as possible. "This might take a while."

She was beyond furious, beyond raging. She was murderous. There was no doubt in her mind that not only was she capable of killing someone, she was about to.

"Alice!" Dad hissed from behind her. "You can't possibly-"

"Oh yes I can," Alice replied, not taking her eyes off the madman at the end of the hall. "Go. Get going." She listened as Felix dragged him away, and fell into a defensive position, waiting for him to make the first move.

March pulled out a gun and fired it. The bullet caught her square in the chest, and she was propelled several feet back before collapsing on the floor and lying very, very still.

* * *

Felix came up with seven different reasons why the sound that had just come from the corridor they'd left Alice and Mad March in wasn't a gunshot, but he didn't need any of them. Robert either hadn't heard, or was ignoring it.

Good. He'd never liked telling people that their families were likely dead. Instead, he concentrated on more productive things, like urging Robert to go faster by not pushing him back and lengthening his own stride. They reached the laboratories nearly at a dead run, and he came skidding to a halt just outside the door.

"Ready?" he asked, double-checking to make sure the safety was off on his gun.

Robert nodded and they pushed to door open. The Egg-men all stopped what they were doing, staring at them.

"Okay everyone!" Felix yelled. "Back away from the controls! Hands where I can see them!"

"Please do as he says," Robert pleaded. "The equipment is delicate- you all know what will happen if he starts shooting."

He couldn't tell if it was genuine fear that was making the scientist's voice tremble slightly, or if it was an act for the sake of his former underlings, and didn't much care as long as it got them to obey.

It did. The back away, hands point towards the ceiling. Felix nodded and Robert stepped forwards and fiddled with the controls.

And, one by one, the Oysters in the Casino woke up.

* * *

 _Things that begin with the letter 't'…_

Time. As in once upon a _time_ he was a boy who lived in a cozy apartment with his parents. They were from the Grand Chess Alliance, Rooks, and therefore members of the Resistance. They didn't want to run missions together, but when they did he was supposed to hide in the space behind the amour. One time they didn't come back, and he'd had to sneak out twice for more supplies (and to empty the bedpan) before the Resistance came with the news. They took the books. They left him.

Too. As in as a street kid he was always _too_ hot, _too_ cold, _too_ young, _too_ old, _too_ scrawny, _too_ tall, and much, much _too_ clever to have much patience with the rest. One day someone realized that, and he found himself a partner. He got the couch, access to the shower and fridge: March learned to stop coming home with blood dribbling all over the carpet and soaking through to his clothes in the hamper.

Texts. As in he loved reading _texts_ , loved the remembrance of his family they gave him, loved the feeling of having gotten to something the Resistance wanted first, as much as he loved the ideas and words and thoughts inside them. He kept his stash beneath the couch and tried not to let March see, but he knew, he'd known…

Thick. As in he and March were _thick_ as thieves but blood was _thicker_ than water and he couldn't get rid of the fact that they would not have wanted him to make his living like this. He began doctor the evidence he found in his mark's homes before bringing it to March, and not only when they paid him to. He did it when they had kids, or were old and kindly, or young and in love, or just because he felt like it. He couldn't get around the fact that even if the Resistance had abandoned him, they hadn't killed his parents: that had been the Queen. He was being sucked into their wake, but that lead to somewhere March couldn't follow, not as he was. He was _thick_ too; he thought he could change that.

Thyme. As in he'd spied on _Thyme_ , as in he'd gone through with having March reason to kill _Thyme_ , as in _Thyme_ was the one who gave him his idea.

Tea. As in Serenity _Tea_ , as in Calm _Tea_ , as in all the other _Teas_ he'd used to try to make March less dependent upon killing others. It was why he owned the shop- so he had access to a ready supply. And it worked for a time.

Tortoise. As in the _Tortoise_ and the Hare, the race _Tortoise_ won against all sense and reason. March was too steeped in Hatter's wares to chase after her properly. The King wouldn't pardon him. He lost his head because of it. And when he'd come back, he'd come back angry.

Torture. Tweedles. Turncoat. _Traitor_.

Was that him or March?

"Excuse me? Are you alright?" The Suit said for about the eleventh time, waving his fingers in front of Hatter's face.

He didn't know. He wasn't sure he cared.

He balled his splint-less right hand into a fist and lashed out with a strength he didn't remember having. The Suit crumpled to the floor; he got the gun he'd been wearing before the other one could leave his seat.

"Don't move," Hatter ordered, reaching behind him blindly for the doorknob. "Or the shot will go through your head."

He found the exit, and left.

 _Alice was here. Alice wasn't safe. Alice was shot by March. Alice might be dead._

Not a 't' word in the lot, but the words repeated themselves over and over in his head as he took off running, heedless of all the reasons why that wasn't such a good idea.

* * *

March walked down the corridor, his footsteps the only sound in the empty space. It was a shame he had to kill the broad like that, but he'd heard _stories_ about her. Normally he'd be all for finding out how much they'd grown in the telling, but then again, normally his head wasn't made of clay; he didn't want to risk anyone with a sense of how to hit good and proper getting a crack at it. One shot through the heart, quick and clean, and now all there was to do was to get rid of the body before anyone who might go blabbing to Hatter saw it. He didn't want to upset the kid. He was still in something of a delicate condition.

He bent over the body and grabbed its arms, and then jumped back as the body grabbed back and pulled, unbalancing him badly enough that he nearly fell backwards onto the floor.

* * *

His mother railing blindly, his father soothing ineffectively; it might as well have been his birthday again, if the sounds were anything to go by. Jack took a deep calming breath and stepped out from behind the drapes into the modestly-lit chamber of the Throne Room.

"You can stop your guessing," Jack told his parents. "The knights are here because I bought them here."

The stared at him, as though they expected him to be some sort of phantasmagoria. He stared back, level and calm as he could, and kept him gun pointed in their general direction if not actually at them.

"It was easier than I thought it would be," Jack continued. "They were tired of hiding, as was I."

Mother stepped forwards, color rising in her cheeks. "You foolish, stupid, _worthless_ little-"

Jack trained the gun at her chest and cocked it. She stopped.

"Jack," his father said warningly from his seat on the consort's throne. "You can't shoot your own mother."

"Not any more than she could execute her own son," he replied evenly. "We need the ring, Mother. Things will go much better for you if you simply hand it over now."

For a moment, the color left her face entirely, and for the first time in his life, Jack saw what the Queen looked like when she was afraid. Then her eyes narrowed.

"You won't do it," she sneered. She took a step forwards, and Jack raised the gun up. A shot through the head: the way the bullets in this gun worked, the body wouldn't even resemble his mother when the deed was done. "You don't have it in you." They needed that ring, everything depended upon that ring. They could clean the blood off later. "I can see you trying to talk yourself into it, and you're failing. You're just too soft, too-"

The sound of a gun going off rang through the room.

* * *

"How much longer is this going to take?" Felix muttered.

"It all depends on how panicked the Oysters get," Robert replied. He looked back at the video feed. Some of them had discovered that they couldn't move their feet. It wouldn't be long before the lack of mobility and sheer proximity to each other caused a spike of mass hysteria. He could release them then, but not a moment before, no matter how much he-

There was the sound of a gun cocking, then Robert suddenly found himself pushed to the floor as the Egg-men screamed and Tea began to leak out of the vat directly behind him.

"Robert!"

It was Walrus. Robert crawled beneath the table, scrambling around to the other side just before Walrus waddled into sight. "Come out, Robert! The Queen's not very pleased with you."

* * *

Yesterday had been a busy day for Alice; in between reconnecting with her father and running between Charlie's camp, she'd also been properly introduced to the man known as Dormie. He was self-described as Hatter's best friend, a claim Alice had been skeptical of right up until he pressed a Kelvar vest into her arms and told her that if Hatter had really given himself up for her, he wouldn't want her to charge to his rescue unprepared.

"He wouldn't want you to charge to his rescue period," Dormie had confided, pausing to yawn. "But if you didn't, then I'd have to hurt you."

He had fallen asleep then, which had saved Alice the trouble of coming up with the appropriate response, if nothing else. She'd been worried when she'd first tried it on that the vest might restrict her movements too much, but after a bit of thinking decided that the extra protection was worth it.

Now, as March reached for his gun and she ran for him, she was very, very glad that common sense had won out in the end.

The gun went off; the bullet lodged itself in the floor shortly before Alice's kick sent the weapon skittering across the hall. March started towards it, but was forced to retreat as she went on the offensive. Finally he lashed out with a well-aiming kick and Alice stumbled back a few steps as all the air went out of her lungs.

She fell into an attack stance, waiting for him to give her an opening. She needed to destroy that head of his, and she needed to keep him away from his gun. Everything else would just have to wait.

"Okay, so you want to this the hard way?" March nodded, the definitive edge of a smirk to his voice. "Then we can do this the hard way."

Alice dodged his first punch, pivoting beneath it and striking out with her elbow. It barely grazed his ribs, but when he kicked out again she grabbed hold of his leg and used it to unbalance him. She lashed out again, latching onto his arm and throwing him to the floor. He rolled to the side just in time to avoid her heel coming down on his face. He spun, hooking a foot around her ankle and sweeping her onto the floor before getting unsteadily to his feet.

* * *

Club suits didn't fight, and Felix was beginning to be brutally reminded of why he'd preferred it that way.

He was waiting behind one of the vats, the sweat in his hands making his grip on his gun tenuous at best. He peeked around the edge, hoping for a clear shot. So many things could go wrong: he could miss and hit another vat and turn the entire room into a chemical bomb; he could hit Robert and doom all the Oysters trapped above to go down with the Casino; he could hit one of the Egg-men, and while he didn't think they were exactly innocent, he also didn't think that any of them deserved to die by bleeding out into a puddle of Lust.

He adjusted the grip on his gun again, swallowed, and chanced another look. Walrus' back was to him as he made his slow way around the lab tables.

Felix aimed and fired. The first shot went wild, hitting the door rather than anything valuable; the second and third shots hit his shoulder and waist. Walrus recoiled; Felix shot again, this time the shot went through the other man's eye, and he collapsed backwards, dead.

Robert got to his feet unsteadily, and made his way back over to the controls for the Oyster rooms. His eyes widened.

"Everyone go!" he ordered. "Don't bother with the regular decontamination procedures, just run!"

His fingers flew over the keys as the Egg-men moved en mass for the door, and the vat Felix was leaning against began to shudder.

* * *

The light in the Throne Room spluttered and dimmed. All eyes in the room turned towards the nook jut behind the thrones.

"Duchess!" The King exclaimed.

"Majesty," Duchess acknowledged, giving him a sardonic little curtsy before turning back to the matter at hand. "While we could debate all day about whether or not Jack has it in him to kill in cold blood, I'm sure no one doubts what I am capable of?"

There was an uneasy silence, which she felt comfortable enough to take as a yes.

"Now, Your Majesty," she said, addressing the Queen. "You're going to take that ring of yours and-"

There was a rumble and a shake, and with a start Duchess realized that they'd run out of time. "And come outside," she improvised. "We'll all be leaving the Casino now."

The Queen moved to leave, and Jack to follow her, but the King remained firmly in his seat. "No."

"No?" The Queen said, incredulously. Sadly, Duchess couldn't have put it better herself.

"You don't understand. The distillery is overloading. If we don't leave now this place will collapse around us!" Duchess told him.

"I figure it was something like that," he replied. Jack let his gun droop as he stared at his father in horror. Thankfully the Queen didn't notice, as she was busy staring at the same man in shock. "I'm tired. I love you, Mary, but there's nothing I can do to make you happy. I've tried everything! I would conqueror the world just for one smile- but it isn't coming, is it?"

"Don't be silly, Winston!" The Queen barked. "You heard the girl, we need to leave, now."

Duchess bristled, but didn't get a chance to reply before the King did.

"No," he repeated, then scoffed. "I've never said that to you, have I?"

"Father," Jack began.

The King spared him a glance, and shrugged, before going back to staring at the Queen.

"No," Duchess said. "You will get out of that chair, and will leave the Casino with us. Alive."

"What are you going to do?" The King asked, bleak humor dripping off every word. "Shoot me?"

"No. I will shoot her," Duchess told him, aiming for the Queen once more. "Then I'll take the ring from her corpse and leave you alone with the body for the rest of your short, miserable life."

The room groaned, and began to shake more violently, rattled the chairs against the table.

"Why not just shoot me anyway?" The Queen asked.

"Because after all you have done, you do not deserve the quick and easy route," Duchess sneered, as Winston got up and joined the rest of his family in leaving the throne.

They all left together, four royals in a mess of panicked Suits and Oysters, alive and with ring intact. Mission accomplished.

* * *

Alice rolled, crouched, and stood. March lashed out with a punch that might have dislocated her jaw if she hadn't been able to block it in time, and when he tried the follow it up with another punch she flipped him over, purposefully aiming the throw so that the majority of the impact would end up on his head. The ceramic make a great crash as it hit the tile, and she stomped down on March's face until all that was left was a smoldering mess of circuitry that lit the hem of her pants on fire.

Just as she was beating the flames out, there was the sound of footsteps pounding the floor. Hatter- Hatter!- came around the corner, skittering to a stop when he saw them.

He was dressed in suit, and carrying a gun. Alice froze, but he kept the gun pointed at the floor and walked towards them, looking as uncertain as she felt.

"Is he dead?" he asked. His voice was more ragged than she remembered it being, and the accent thicker.

'Yeah," Alice replied."I think so."

Hatter nodded, then emptied his gun into March's chest. Alice stared at him.

"Yeah, I," he began, running his free hand through his head. Alice caught the wince, and the splint that was still on his pinky finger. "I'm not certain of enough right now that if he's going to be dead, I'd like him to be really, really, absolutely dead."

"Okay," Alice said.

"You- uh," Hatter said, pointing at her. "You're- you-you are-"

"I'm Alice," she said, trying to squash her disappointment. She'd known this was a possibility. Things seemed to be better than she'd been told to expect; he wasn't shooting at her, and obviously knew that there was something wrong with him.

But, being Hatter, he surprised her.

"Oh, I know," Hatter protested. "I know you're Alice, I'm just stuttering because I'm trying to figure out everything else that you-"

There was the sudden sound of masses of people screaming in terror, and the building began to quake around them.

"Tell you what," Hatter said. "Do you know the game _run now and sort the rest out later_?"

"I'm very good at that game," Alice replied.

"Great!" Hatter cried. "Race you to the exit!"

* * *

It was only the sort of day that began with finding knights on your doorstep that could end like this, Hatter decided. His only consolation was that Alice seemed as perplexed by everything as he felt.

"Is it just me," Alice asked at they carefully made their way towards what seemed to be the main hub of activity, "Or did we miss a picnic?"

"I don't think we _just_ missed a picnic," Hatter told her, nodded towards the giant crater, which had stopped smoking by now. "But I'm pretty sure some sort of picnic-type activity was involved somewhere along the line, yeah?"

"This has got to be Charlie's doing," Alice said firmly.

"Charlie?" Hatter asked. For an answer, Alice pointed behind him. Hatter turned to see and old man dressed in a white tunic and breeches- Charlie, he supposed- running towards him. That was all the warning he got before the same old man had grabbed him soundly around the middle and squeezed.

"Harbinger!" Charlie cried.

"Ow!" Hatter yelped. To his credit, Charlie let go and immediately began to apologize.

"No, no it's alright," Hatter wheezed, pressing and arm against his ribs. "Just give a guy a little warning when he's busted up, yeah? Okay?"

Charlie nodded, then smiled brightly. "You're alive!"

"Yes, that is true," Hatter said.

"I feared the worse when you were captured by the Queen's men," Charlie continued. "Lady Alice and I are both indebted to your valor."

"My what?" Hatter asked. "Wait, _Lady_ Alice?"

"You charged to the rescue- distracted the Suits long enough for me to rescue Lady Alice and cover our escape," Charlie informed him, frowning a little.

Hatter blinked. That was what had lead up to all this?

"It's just Alice," Alice added quickly. "I'm just Alice."

"No you're not," Hatter told her. "You're never 'just' anything. _That_ , I remember."

Alice smiled, and blushed, and Hatter was suddenly quite pleased with himself. She turned towards Charlie, and brushed a stray hair behind her ear. "Charlie, what exactly happened here?"

"After we reached a point in the battle at which neither side was willing to either attack or retreat, I decided that it would be a good idea to take advantage of the lull and eat some lunch. The Suits were even more tired and thirsty than we were at that point- it takes more energy to attack than to defend, you know, and don't let the trebuchet fool you _they_ were definitely on the offense- so we came to an arrangement. They would lay down their arms and surrender, and we would feed them."

"You got the entire Suit army to surrender," Hatter summarized slowly, "With lunch?"

"My sandwiches are quite delicious, I'll have you know," Charlie informed them.

Hatter was still trying to absorb the knowledge of how _interesting_ the company he was keeping these days was when there was a sound like a thunderclap, and they turned to watch as the Casino collapsed upon itself in a cloud of fire and dust.

"I have to find my father," Alice exclaimed suddenly, taking off for the group of people. Hatter and Charlie followed her apace, until she stopped short. Hatter began to look around for her father, remembered he had no idea who her father was, and then realized that it didn't matter. She hadn't stopped for dear old Dad; she'd stopped because of the Queen.

"No," Her Royal Highness was raging. "You can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!"

Alice grabbed a sword off the belt of a slightly pudgy man, ignored his outcry, and rushed at the Queen. The Queen very wisely recoiled, and then froze when Alice pointed the tip at her throat.

"That can be arranged," she said.

The Queen snorted. "Please. You don't have the instinct of a killer any more than my son does!"

"Tell that to March," Hatter said loudly, still not sure how to feel about that. There was a murmur through the crowd, and the Queen's face fell.

"Think about the people you've hurt," Alice said, very slowly. "And then tell me I wouldn't."

Looking decidedly sour, the Queen removed the ring from her finger and handed it the Jack. He held it aloft as she let the sword drop, to a loud, spontaneous cheer from all sides. For a moment, Hatter wondered why. Then he remembered.

It was the Stone of Wonderland. Jack-Prince Jack- King Jack?- had given it to her, she'd fallen through the Looking Glass chasing after him, and she'd fond him and he'd bought her to the man whose sword she'd stolen-Dodo! His name was Dodo!- who worked with Owl and Duck and Charlie! Charlie was a knight! A real, honest knight! He should tell Dormie. He was feeling a bit mimsy, though, so maybe that would have to wait...

Something was wrong. The hand he had tucked against his side came away sticky with blood. He must have pulled the stitches in his side, at some point, when he was running or hugging or shooting.

"I-"

But Alice was busy embracing a man who must be her father, and he couldn't get any more words out anyway. He was crashing too hard, too fast…

"Hatter!"

This was nice grass. He should take some home for his office.

"Hatter, hold on," Alice said, clasping his hand. Obediently, he squeezed back, and then put his other hand on top of hers.

"Breathing hurts," he told her.

"I know," Alice told him, from under the lake she'd fallen in. "Just hold on Hatter, we're getting help. Just hold on."

But the water was too deep and dark for his grip and Alice was gone.

* * *


	7. Endgame

Alice had been gone about an hour when the knock on the door came.

"I've told you," Carol called and she unlocked the door. "When you leave the house you need to take your k-"

It was Robert. Carol shut the door. He knocked again.

Tentatively, she opened it again. It was still Robert- with more wrinkles and grey hair, but undoubtedly her wayward husband.

"I- Carol," he began.

"Do you have any idea what you've put us through?" she demanded. She didn't want to hear the apology- there was no apology on Earth that could possibly cover what he'd done. "You know you've been missing for thirteen years, right?"

"Carol," Robert repeated. She ignored the implicit plea to let him speak.

"Thirteen years! I had to raise Alice all on my own!" Carol yelled. "You missed all of her teen years, her high school graduation, her college graduation…"

"Her black belt and a string of boyfriends," Robert said, anguished. "I know. She's told me."

Carol stared. _That_ could only mean one thing: Alice's Dad search had finally paid off.

"I know there's nothing I can possibly," he began again, then stopped. "There's no excuse for this. None. But I can explain, if you'll let me show you something."

"Really?" Carol asked incredulously.

"Really," Robert promised. "It'll only take an hour of your time, and Alice is waiting for us there."

That settled it. Carol got her jacket and her keys, and gestured out into the hallway. "After you, then."

* * *

When Hatter woke up, he was mostly just cold, with a little spot of warmth along his left side. As he opened his eyes- a task made very difficult by the fact that they'd been soldered shut while he slept- he noticed that the warmth corresponded with the dark-haired head resting on the bed. The nice-looking body it was attached to was seated next to the bed, causing it to be bent into what was probably a pretty uncomfortable position. He made to reach out and wake her up, but when he lifted his arm his side felt like it caught fire, and he had to let it drop before it even got an inch off the bed.

He'd also apparently made some noise, because the figure began to stir and just as the pain in his side began to subside, Alice raised her head, eyes widening as she saw him.

"Hatter!"

"Alice," he replied, frowning at how scratchy his voice was. "What happened?"

"You tore out your stitches," Alice told him, squeezing his hand a little. "Water?"

It took a minute for him to realize that she was asking him if he wanted any, and he nodded.

"You scared me," Alice called from the bathroom.

"Why, what did I do?" Hatter asked.

"What did you do? What did you do?" Alice yelled. Hatter blinked. "You came after me when I went to the Casino. And again, when the Suits found me at the Hospital of Dreams. You were caught because of me, they tortured you, and when I finally find you again you rip your stitches and collapse!"

Alice march over to the bed and held out the glass for him to sip from. He looked at it for a moment, before replying. "You're welcome."

"Please, never do it again," Alice said seriously.

"If I do, will you come after me?" Hatter asked.

"Of course I will!" Alice cried. "That's not the point."

"Yes it is," Hatter replied. "I don't want you in danger any more than you want me in danger. The way I see it, as long as we both try to steer clear of trouble, there's no need for anyone to risk anything on rescue missions."

Alice sat, shakily. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Hatter repeated, then after a moment added. "Can I have that water now?

* * *

Being King seemed to entail a lot more work than Jack had anticipated. True, he'd been expecting there to be more work than he'd ever seen going on under his parent's reign, but not quite _this_ much work. The Court wasn't used to doing more than the bare functional minimum, and getting them to try and increase the scope or quality of their work was even more difficult than pulling teeth. He was fast approaching the point where he was going to open a meeting with a request that Caterpillar find suitable replaces for them all from the Resistance's ranks, and see if they got the message that simply because he was not going to have them beheaded didn't mean he couldn't make their lives very miserable indeed.

He'd just barely managed to deposit himself on the edge of his bed when the door opened. "Hello, Duchess."

"Hello, Jack," Duchess replied, settling herself on the edge of the bed right alongside him. "Long day at the office?"

"No more than usual," Jack told her. "Hopefully, I'll get used to this in time."

"The workload will probably lessen too," Duchess reassured him. "You aren't the only one adjusting to a change in pace. As the ministers learn their new duties they'll start relying on you to guide them less."

"They might blame me less," Jack predicted. "But I'm sure I'll be tweaking their budgets for the rest of my reign."

He sighed, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. "We still need to have that talk."

He opened them to find Duchess, looking ill with nerves. "It can wait. Now's not a good time, not with-"

"Duchess," Jack interrupted gently. "We have a country to run. It will never be a good time."

She took a deep breath, then as he watch pushed aside all of her trepidation. "We're still engaged. I trust you wish to remain that way?"

"For the time being," he replied. "Demands of politics, I'm afraid."

"And you're expecting that I'll let us remain that way until you find the woman you wish to marry and then to step aside," she challenged.

"No!" he protested. "No, that's not what I meant by politics! I meant- Duchess, I'm not sure who you are without my mother to perform for. I'm not sure who I am either. I'd like time to figure that out."

"And the politics?" Duchess demanded.

"It would look very strange if we were to break off our engagement only to become engaged again," Jack said.

"So, this has nothing to do with the fact that you're the first King of Hearts to wield power openly while still single, then?" Duchess asked.

"Yes, I'm actually secretly looking for a very discreet bodyguard to beat the bachelorettes off me," Jack said, in all apparent seriousness.

"In case you were wondering," Duchess informed him. "Without your mother to perform for, you don't emote very well."

"I don't?" Jack asked.

Duchess shook her head.

"I can see how that might complicate things."

Still shaking her head, Duchess began to smile.

* * *

Alice would have been happy never to set foot on another Scarab ever again, but Jack had offered Hatter the chance to fly over the wreckage of the Casino so he could watch the construction team clearing it away, and Hatter was willing to take him up on it. He was fine, he insisted, but Alice couldn't shake the impression that fine was an extremely subjective term. He'd seemed more or less 'fine' until he was on the ground and bleeding, and Alice was _not_ letting that happen again. So she went with him, and if he thought that arm he had around her was just for the sake of her nerves, then she wasn't going to call attention to how much he was leaning on her.

"He wasn't all bad," Hatter said suddenly as the Scarab circled lazily over the site of the Casino. "He got worse as he got older, but he wasn't ever all bad."

Alice didn't know what to say. Now that the adrenaline had faded and things were settling into a semblance of sanity, the fact that she'd actually _killed_ a man was just beginning to sink in.

"I'm not blaming you, or anything," Hatter said quickly. "He wasn't ever half good, either. He didn't leave you with much of a choice, I'm sure. Just, he was human, not a mindless killing machine."

Alice nodded, reaching for his hand. And if the feel of his fingers intertwined with hers was all that kept her from falling to pieces, she didn't feel like calling attention to that either.

* * *

Charlie looked down at the pages scattered around the yard. It was a larger class than he'd expected- larger even than he'd hoped. Although, he was serving refreshments and this was their first session. People might drop out. Or they might try to join late.

"Gather around everyone!" he called out. One by one, the children settled down, nibbling on their food. "We're going to start with a history lesson!"

There was a chorus of groans. "I thought you were going to teach us how to be knights!" one of the older girls cried.

"And I am!" Charlie replied. "There is more to being a knight than fighting, and part of that 'more' is knowing your history." When there were no more protests, he began. "Once upon a time and place known as Victorian London, there was a girl, no older than many of you, who fell through the rabbit hole into this world. Her name was Alice."

* * *

Owl and Duck had settled into the same apartment- color him shocked- and after years of bribing them so he wouldn't be shot it felt sort of rude not to go calling. He was also as bored as a well-fed Jub-Jub bird, and was perfectly content to latch onto anything he could as an excuse to leave the confines of his bedroom and walk around the city a bit. It's not that he minded spending the bulk of his time indoor with Alice, but as they weren't exactly doing anything strenuous and she had to make frequent trips to the makeshift palace to chat with her long-lost-now-found father, he did spend a lot of time at loose ends.

Duck didn't seem to be too impressed with the flat warming gift he'd bought, though. "Owl," he yelled. "There's more vegetables for you!"

"Calm down, I bought some mince pies for you too," Hatter said, rolling his eyes. With Jack in charge the Court was no longer sitting pretty on tons and tons of food that would sooner rot than be eaten, but old habits die hard and food's still considered a precious commodity, and therefore a good gift.

"Really?" Duck asked. Hatter reached into the basket and pulled out one of the pies. Duck snatched it away, and then pushed the door all the way open. "Then come inside before you fall down."

Hatter rolled his eyes again. "I'm fine! Believe it or not, passing out from blood loss is not an activity in which I regularly partake."

Duck muttered something under his breath, the only word of which that was audible was 'Alice'.

"Oi!" he protested as Duck kicked a chair away from the table for him to sit on. "What's she been telling you?"

"That you've currently got a higher thread count than one of your shirts and that we shouldn't be too hard on you until that changes," Owl called from the kitchen. Hatter groaned, embarrassed. He didn't want to be fussed over, even at a distance. He might start getting used to it, and then he'd miss it when it was gone.

"Speaking of which, are there going to be little half-Hatters running around soon?" Owl continued as she took the basket from his suddenly limp hands.

"What?" he asked.

"Little half-Hatters," Owl repeated. "You were a very strange child, if there are going to be more like I should like to be prepared."

Hatter shot a beseeching look at Duck, who shot one of his own back that clearly said he was on his own.

"I- there- you barely even knew me when I was child!" Hatter protested.

"Well you made quite the impression," Owl insisted.

"Yeah, there's no kids in the works," he answered.

"Well when there are give me a heads up," Owl insisted.

"Yeah, okay," Hatter promised. It was the sort of promise that was very easy to make, because keeping it would require absolutely no effort at all. The idea of his having kids with Alice was so ludicrously out of reach it wasn't even worth thinking about. They were barely even dating- which he planned on changing as soon as he was physically able- and well. She had a _life_ on the other side of the Looking Glass. She was only staying until her father finished his work drying out the Tea heads, and he wasn't really sure what he could do. Visit, he supposed, but…

After so many years trying to make her family whole, Alice couldn't leave them. And after so many years trying to overthrow the Queen, Hatter couldn't leave Wonderland behind either.

* * *

Dodo might possibly have been happy. It was such a strange sensation that he wasn't exactly sure what it was, but he felt light and couldn't stop smiling no matter how many times he caught himself.

"No, no, no!" he yelled. The Suits ignored him and continued to power wash the skylights, letting sunlight into the library for the first time in over a century.

"That's going to ruin the books we haven't managed to put away!" he yelled.

"Stop complaining and help us put them away if you're so worried!" Felix shouted back from the small patch of library floor they'd managed to clear. From there he was directing his fellow Clubs, doing his best to make sure that none of the books were grievously misfiled and failing no more often than he should.

"Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how many mistakes you're making!" Dodo replied. The water washed the next window clear, sending a rippling shaft of light on top of him. And he smiled.

* * *

Hatter had gotten the last of his stitches out, and seemed to be making up for the loss of mobility by going twice as fast and talking a mile minute. This extended to walking home even though the sky had been an ominous slate grey since before they'd woken up; they ended up running home through the rain.

"Don't be silly, it never rains in Wonderland," Hatter told her as they sprinted through the front door of the Tea Shop. "It _pours_."

"Really? I had no idea," Alice said, wiggling out of the now very wet and very heavy velvet coat Hatter was still lending her.

Hatter opened the door to his office, before spinning around to beam at her. "Wait, that's actually true! There aren't any prevailing winds at this latitude, so any storms that hit us have to be big and full of momentum all on their own! There's science and everything!"

Alice laughed at his gleeful expression as he tipped his hat forward and let the water that had collected on the brim fall into one of his shrubs.

"I remember, that was in one of the books Dodo first paid me with," Hatter continued, taking the coat from her arms and wringing it out over two of the other shrubberies. "He thought it would be too boring for me to get anything out of."

"But it turned out to be interesting?" Alice guessed, walking up behind him.

"Nope," Hatter informed her, still grinning like a madman and bouncing slightly as he hung up her jacket and began to wring out his own on the grass. "Dead boring. I've met more interesting statues. Useful though- if you think walking in this is bad, try being-"

There was a curl plastered to the side of his face, and without conscious thought process Alice found herself prying it back up to furl around his hat.

"Try being out in a boat," Hatter finished, his voice rough.

She leaned up at the same time he leaned down, and for a moment their noses bumped, Alice turned her head slightly to the left, and then they were kissing properly, lips pressed together, and stubble rasping on her skin. She felt his eyelashes on her face as his eyes fluttered closed. Hers had shut already and there was nothing to do but get him to drop the wet jacket and press them closer together.

* * *

Caterpillar could have been content in his position as the King's adviser, but that would imply that he felt and he was never quite sure that what others termed emotions applied to him at all. He preferred certainties when talking to himself- doubts and differing shades of reality were for conversation with other people.

"If Minister Maribor is unable to fulfill his duties reconstructing the education system, I've heard from Tortoise. She would be happy to take up the position," Caterpillar said. It was a perfect example of the concept he was musing about. Ostensibly, he was addressing the King, but the message itself was meant for Minister Maribor, and to a lesser extent, all the other officials that were in the room who had been dragging their feet, which was to say very nearly all of them. The King himself had no need to hear those words, as even if he had not received the notice he had sent to him, they had spoken about it just before this very meeting. It had the curious effect of causing Maribor's face to redden, but not reply.

"Thank you Caterpillar," The King said. "That is a comfort to know."

Caterpillar nodded in acknowledgment, and took another pull on his hookah, wondering if he might also be capable of being smug.

* * *

"What are we doing, Hatter?" Dormie asked.

"Well, I'm catching up on some reading, and you're asking stupid questions," Hatter replied, not looking up from the text.

"About the Shop, I meant," Dormie replied, rolling his eyes. "And I think you might just be acting thick."

"You've caught me," Hatter snapped, looking up just long enough to send him an extremely unimpressed look. "I've told you, we should wait on the insurance before deciding on anything."

"It came two days ago!" Dormie cried.

Hatter looked genuinely surprised for a moment, before covering it up quickly. "There's a problem with it. I've sent it back to be redone."

"You didn't even know it was here!" Dormie accused. Hatter said nothing, which told him all he needed to know anyway. Hatter had gone madly in love, completely girl crazy. It's not that Dormie couldn't tell why, what with the girl in question being absolutely crazy herself, but he was worried by the fact that it was causing Hatter to brood. A broody Hatter was not a productive Hatter, and an unproductive Hatter meant that _he_ had to do more of the work.

"What are you doing, Hatter?" Dormie asked.

"I told you, I'm reading," Hatter grunted.

"Reading what?"

Hatter sighed, and then held up the book so the cover was truly visible: A Rabbit in Oxford.

"Hatter!" Dormie cried. "You can't be serious."

"That's up for debate," Hatter replied. "I prefer to keep things light, but that doesn't always work, does it?"

Dormie didn't have much to say to that, so he stopped asking stupid questions, and let Hatter go back to being thick.

* * *

Robert was a scientist; more than that, he was a neurologist. Observation of people's behavior was second nature to him, as was hypothesizing based on whatever details he noted. Alice was still coming to see him at his work three or four times a week, but always returned to another section of the city before nightfall. She was consistently cheerful about his work, but had to put more and more effort into the demeanor the closer he got to finishing it. She avoided bringing up home, though she could talk about it when he did.

There were a lot of hypothesizes he could make based on those facts. One of them was that he needed to find a shotgun and pay Hatter a visit; another was that the idea that Hatter would be paying them a visit was severely in question, even factoring out the shotgun. He could never quite get an answer from Alice about what her relationship with Hatter was, likely because he could never quite bring himself to ask directly.

He was going to need some backup for that talk. And there was only one person he could think of who he could count on for that. Providing she would still give him the time of day.

* * *

Darrel was a fairly simple man. He was attached to his head and took a very dim view of anyone who showed signs of disapproving of that relationship. As such, the new regime suited him just fine: the King was not a violent man, and neither was his fiancé at heart.

Heart. Heh.

If he had any complaints about the new order, it was that they kept sending him to various corners of the City. They were all very serious missions concerning very important people and very sensitive information, but that didn't change the fact that he was essentially acting as a courier.

Well. Better his dignity than his brain.

He knocked on the door to Hatter's Tea Shop office. It swung open and he was suddenly face to face with Lady Alice. Oh. So this was where she'd been hiding herself away.

"Hello," Alice greeted.

"Yes, hello," Darrel replied. "I'm here for you and Hatter?"

"Yeah, what's up?" Hatter's voice called from inside the office.

"The ceiling?" Darrel replied, confused.

"Why Alice!" Hatter cried, sounding shocked. "You've corrupted me!"

Alice rolled her eyes. "Turnabout's fair play."

"You're saying I've corrupted you?"

"Absolutely," she purred.

Darrel coughed. "The Duchess has requested Hatter's presence at the palace as soon as is convenient."

"Oh, I was just on my way there," Alice replied.

"Looks like I'll be taking that walk after all," Hatter remarked.

"I've got a bullet car waiting," Darrel informed.

"Or we could drive," Hatter suggested. "That could be fun too."

* * *

Duchess was humming to herself a bit when she heard Hatter enter the room. She couldn't help it: her engagement to Jack was still official and whole, and she was beginning to expect that it would stay that way, even if Jack had apparently never cared much for ballet and her habit of leaving her cosmetics out in the bathroom drove him insane. It put her in a generous mood, and made her want to reach out to someone who was also hoping against hope for a happy ending.

And if she was petty enough to feel better with Alice safely entrenched on the other side of the Looking Glass, then, well. No one was perfect.

* * *

Alice hadn't been aware of how much homesickness she'd been repressing until she caught sight of her mother standing outside Dad's laboratory.

"Mom!" she cried, throwing her arms around her.

"Alice!" Mom replied. "We're in Wonderland!"

"I know!" Alice cried, then stopped. "Wait, what are you doing here?"

"Your father showed up completely out of the blue and bought me here," she replied, with a significant look over her shoulder. Alice turned around to face Dad, looking a bit misty-eyed.

"He also promised me that he could explain," Mom added, more sternly.

"It's complicated," Alice said automatically.

"I gathered that when I noticed I was on another planet," Mom replied. "What happened?"

Alice looked to her father, who said. "It's a long story. You remember that grant project I was working on? About the limbic system and the chemicals it secretes?"

"Yes…" Mom replied uncertainly.

"Well, I wasn't the only person interested in that, apparently," Dad continued. "They- the people here- well, some of them-"

"Until maybe two and a half weeks ago, there was Wonderland was run by the Queen of Hearts," Alice interrupted. "One of the ways she remained in power was through use of these Teas. They were extracts of human emotions, essentially, and that's why they took Dad."

Mom stared. "You were kidnapped?"

"Yes," Dad replied. "They made me forget about you and Alice, about my life on Earth, even. It took me longer than it should have to remember again."

"It's not your fault," Alice replied.

"I went over a week after seeing you before it finally sunk in," Dad replied stubbornly.

"You've only been gone an hour!" Mom interjected, before Alice had to come up with another way of phrasing 'It's not your fault!'.

"What?" Alice said.

"The Looking Glass can take you back to whatever time you chose, within reason," Dad explained quickly. "I got her an hour after you went through."

"How long has it been for you?" Mom asked.

"Almost a month, now," Alice replied. "Like I said, it's complicated."

Very complicated. Complicated enough that by the time she'd finished telling it she was all but sitting on her mother's lap, like she was ten years old again and wondering where her father was. The fact that he was right there, rubbing a hand down her back, made it only marginally better.

"Alice!" Hatter shouted from the end of the hall. He was grinning again, though it dimmed considerably when he saw what she was doing.

"Are you alright?" he asked, concerned. Alice wiped the tears from her eyes, feeling a bit foolish: after all, she'd come out on top.

"I'm fine," she replied, standing. "Hatter, this is my mother, Carol. Mom, this is Hatter."

"Hello," Hatter greeted, tipping his hat. Mom smiled weakly back.

"What's going on?" Alice asked.

"I've just been to see Duchess," he began.

Alice nodded. "And?"

"And, they need someone to keep an eye on the Looking Glass from your end of things," Hatter said.

Alice blinked, the implications clear. "So, you're..."

"I'm moving to New York!" Hatter replied, grin breaking out in full force.

 _Yeah, she really had come out on top_ she thought, as she threw her arms around him.

* * *

New York smelled different: asphalt and plastic and car exhaust. There were so many people, libraries full to the brim with literally millions of books, and food like he'd never thought possible.

There was also his job, with just enough intrigue and danger that he didn't feel like he was going soft. And there was Alice, who let him get away with being soft-ish anyhow. And Hatter… Hatter was happy, and able to plan on staying that way for a very long time to come.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking hell on a motorcycle.
> 
> This was one of those stories: those stories being the ones which don't write themselves so much as enslave you and refuse to let you go until you have them all down on paper. It's also the first full-length piece of fanfiction I've ever managed to finish. I'm pretty proud of myself. And kind of worried about the fact that my muses apparently have the ability to make me type things completely against my will. But, anyway...
> 
>  _Titles_  
>  The name of the fic itself comes from the idea in chess of a sacrifice: a piece you dangle for your opponent in order to lure them into a trap. Each of the chapters is named for a chess move as well: 'Blackburne Shilling' is a weak opening gambit whose only strength is really that of unpredictability, which describes how I felt about the chapter originally. Falkbeer is a type of countergambit, also normally used in the early stages of a chess game. Zwischenzug is a fancy German name for a middling move that doesn't actually do anything but set a piece in a new position. Connected Pawns refers to the strong position of having your pawns within moving distance of one another, preventing their capture. Castled King is the move where a King is placed in a more secure position by being tucked in the back corner next to a rook. And you should all know what Endgame is by now.
> 
>  _Mad March_  
>  I was really flattered by how sympathetic people found Mad March to be. I tend to read him as being part Dexter Morgan part psychotic man-child; it's not that his aims are completely incomprehensible so much as his methods and ideologies are completely batshit insane. He has an opportunity to get his friend back; if it involves torture and brainwashing, then it involves torture and brainwashing. Why should that bother him?
> 
>  _The Picnic_  
>  I'll admit it, this was sort of the result of me having written myself into a corner. I didn't want the fighting to be too brutal, because the Suits would need to switch sides easily and I couldn't really have either side advance too much, because the Suits needed to stay between the Resistance and the Casino for the plan to work. And so, completely out of nowhere, my muse decided that the only way to resolve the issue was to feed everyone sandwiches.
> 
> Me: ...the fuck?  
> Muse: No see, it's actually quite brilliant. It fits into the theme you had of the food being important, and Charlie's growing confidence.  
> Me: It's silly!  
> Muse: Didn't you just here me, it's brilliant!  
> Me: It's so silly the cop from Monty Python is going to arrest me!  
> Muse: You need some elements of humor in this chapter, it fits in well with the arcs you've laid out, and while we've had this conversation you've started to type it out.  
> Me: Fine!
> 
> This sort of schizoid method is apparently how I'm writing my entire next fic as well.
> 
>  _Other Characters_  
>  Felix is the Nine of Clubs, and is named after Alessandro Juliani's other adorable inside man. I had a hard time writing Duchess because when I tried I sometimes came out with a repressed Lady Gaga, but I feel I got a hang of it by the end. Duck's job is something of a pun- what do you do when there's a cannon pointed at you? Duck, of course! Owl originally had a much bigger part where she ended up telling Alice that she was a former Parliamentarian- which is also a pun, as Parliament is the collective noun for owls. It ended up being cut because it was a was lot of nothing for a joke most people wouldn't get, and I kind of liked Owl as the dottering grandmother who accidentally trebuchet'd Suits. Dormie also got his part cut down, because I felt like Alice being shot had more of an impact if her getting the body armor was in flashback after the fact, rather than beforehand. I also had a cut scene where, while in adjacent cells, the Queen realizes that the only person who is acting like she's still the Queen is Winston, and gives him a smile, but it was too creepy for the tone I was aiming for in the epilogue.
> 
> Asclepius is the Greek god of medicine and healing. Why was Charlie threatening the Suits with him? I don't know, ask Nick Willing.﻿ While you're add it, you can ask why Charlie was also chanting in Latin, invoking the hand of a Greek mathematician, and thanking the capital of Lithuania.


End file.
